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Dessert

Mustacioli Biscuits

Almond and spice biscuits made with almonds, flour, sugar, spices, and eggs, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Mustacioli Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the almonds very fine, moistening them with an egg.

  2. Once smooth, place them on a marble slab and add the flour and sugar.

  3. Sift the pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg through a silk sieve and mix into the almond mixture.

  4. Add enough eggs to make a malleable and strong paste.

Bake and finish

  1. Shape the paste as desired and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

  2. Once baked, ice the biscuits with white or chocolate icing, or brush with syrup boiled to a boil.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 paste once ground fine.
Eggs
Bind the ground almonds and sugar into a malleable, strong paste that holds its shape.
Flour
Adds structure to the paste so the shaped biscuits hold together while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown and set as they bake.

The step that matters

Add enough eggs to make a malleable and strong paste. Too little egg leaves the almond mixture crumbly and hard to shape, while too much makes it sticky and slack. The paste needs to be firm enough to hold its shape through baking.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Cashew nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, 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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