Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Lemon Biscuits
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Pound the almonds very fine in a mortar.
Add the egg whites and continue to pound until you have a fine paste.
Mix in the powdered sugar thoroughly.
Grate the rinds of the lemons finely and mix them with the almond and sugar mixture.
Shape and bake
Use a knife and a small board to drop pieces of the paste onto a sheet of paper, about the size of a nutmeg, and round.
Place the biscuits at a convenient distance from each other on the paper.
If the oven is too hot, place 3 or 4 sheets of paper under the biscuits to prevent scorching.
Bake until done, then let them cool completely before removing from the paper.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet almonds
- Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the biscuit.
- Egg whites
- Bind the almond and sugar into a paste that holds its shape.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the biscuits and helps the dough stay soft and pliable.
- Lemons
- Lemon rind adds fragrant citrus aroma and flavour.
The step that matters
Keep the oven from running too hot. Biscuits high in sugar and almond brown and scorch quickly at high heat, so the paper sheets underneath protect their bases while they bake through.
Swap the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, lemon):
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Milletfits about as well
- Almondthe original
- Chickpeafits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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