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Ratafia Biscuits

Almond biscuits made with sweet and bitter almonds, egg whites, and powdered sugar, baked until fine brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ratafia Biscuits

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. Finely pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a mortar with the egg whites.

  2. In a bowl, mix the powdered sugar with the egg whites until it reaches the proper thickness.

Shape and bake

  1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

  2. Using a knife and a wooden spatula, drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the paper, shaping them into rounds about the size of a large nutmeg.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until they are a fine brown and evenly colored. Ensure they do not burn on the bottom, or they will stick to the paper.

  4. Allow the biscuits to cool completely before removing them from the paper.

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

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 nutty body and fat that give the biscuits their flavour and soft texture.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, aromatic almond flavour that contrasts with the sweetness.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds and sugar into a paste that holds its shape while baking.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the biscuits and, with the egg whites, forms the thick mixture that sets and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Watch the bake for bottom browning. Sugar and almond mixtures brown quickly, and over-browning the base can make the biscuits bitter and cause them to stick to the parchment. Checking for an even, fine brown colour and removing them at that point helps prevent this.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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