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Dessert

Almond TFafers

A sweet treat made from almonds, powdered sugar, flour, eggs, and optional essence, baked into thin layers and cut into shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond TFafers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Cut the almonds into very fine fillets.

  2. In a bowl, mix the almonds with the eggs, powdered sugar, flour, and essence until well combined.

Bake and shape

  1. Lightly butter a copper or tinned plate and spread the mixture as thinly as possible.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

  3. Cut into long squares and roll them on pieces of wood to form hollow pillars or any shape you prefer.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the thin, crisp sheet.
Eggs
Bind the almonds together and help the mixture set as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it bakes.
Flour
Adds a little structure so the thin mixture holds together when shaped.

The step that matters

Spreading the mixture thinly. A thin layer bakes evenly and turns crisp; a thick layer stays soft in the middle and may not brown evenly or hold its shape when rolled.

“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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