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Another Sort of Spoiigati, or Italian Christmas Cakes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Another Sort of Spoiigati, or Italian Christmas Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, powdered sugar, powdered bread, almonds, pine nut kernels, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, preserved cedrat, and ground pepper.

  2. Soak the gum dragon in orange flower water until softened.

  3. On a marble slab, combine the powdered sugar and fine starch. Add the soaked gum and strain through a cloth.

  4. Form a malleable paste by adding a little white wine.

  5. Make a crust with the paste, fill it with the mixture, and cover with wafer paper, making it an inch thick.

  6. Use wooden molds to shape the cakes, filling them as above and covering with wafer paper.

  7. Place the molds in a gentle heat for a day before baking in a slack oven.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pine + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, bread, pine, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, bread, pine, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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