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Naples and Savoy Biscuits

A sweet biscuit made with sugar, eggs, flour, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Naples and Savoy Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs very well.

  3. Whisk the sugar and eggs together with a little rose water.

Shape and bake

  1. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

  2. Shape the mixture into long or round biscuits and place on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + rosetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,643 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs trap air and, with the flour, give the biscuits their structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the biscuits and helps them brown in the oven.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the dough into a firm biscuit shape.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs very well. Whipping the eggs incorporates air that acts as the main rising agent. Under-beaten eggs leave a dense, flat biscuit, so the eggs should be beaten thoroughly before the sugar and flour are added.

“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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