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Dessert

Biscuits and Small Cakes

A small chocolate biscuit made with sugar, chocolate, flour, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Biscuits and Small Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the sugar and chocolate together for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the flour and mix again.

  3. Whip the egg whites to a froth and gently fold them into the mixture using a wooden spatula.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto sheets of buttered paper or into small paper molds.

  2. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they lighten the batter and give the biscuits an airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Chocolate
Adds flavor and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the biscuits light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the biscuits bake up dense and flat. Fold gently with a wooden spatula.

“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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