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Dessert

Fatifia Biscuits

A sweet biscuit made with butter, almonds, powdered sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Fatifia Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the paste

  1. Blanch and clean the almonds.

  2. In a mortar, combine the almonds and egg whites, and pound them very fine.

  3. Add the powdered sugar and mix for 15 minutes until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Prepare strong paper for baking the biscuits.

  2. Fill a bladder with the paste using a pipe, and drop the mixture onto the paper, ensuring the biscuits do not touch.

  3. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 flavour and the bulk of the paste's structure.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds and sugar into a cohesive, pipeable paste.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the biscuits and helps them set and brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds and egg whites very fine. If the almonds are not ground fine enough, the paste will be gritty and uneven, and the biscuits may not spread or bake smoothly. Thorough pounding breaks the almonds down so they blend evenly with the egg whites and sugar.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Filbertfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg. 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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