Skip to main content
Dessert

Ratafia Biscuits

Almond biscuits made from blanched almonds, egg whites, and sugar, baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the paste

  1. Blanch and clean the almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds with the egg whites in a mortar until very fine.

  3. Add the powdered sugar and mix for 15 minutes until well combined.

Pipe the biscuits

  1. Prepare strong paper for baking.

  2. Use a piping bag made from a bladder with a hole for the pipe, and fill the bladder with the paste.

  3. Pipe the paste onto the paper, making sure the biscuits do not touch.

Bake and dry

  1. Bake in a warm oven (400°F / 200°C).

  2. If the biscuits stick, wet the bottom of the paper.

  3. Let them dry in the stove for 3-4 hours.

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. Sugar + eggtop 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
Make up the bulk of the paste and give it the main almond flavour.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, more pronounced almond aroma to the paste.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the paste hold together as it dries.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds into a paste that can be piped and holds its shape.

The step that matters

Piping with space between biscuits. The paste spreads slightly as it bakes and dries, so pieces piped too close together can fuse and cannot be separated cleanly afterwards.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes