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Walnut Biscuits

A biscuit made from finely ground almonds, egg whites, sugar, nutmeg, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut 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 finely with the egg whites.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Incorporate nutmeg and allspice for flavor.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the paste to fit your mold, roll in sugar to prevent sticking.

  2. Bake the biscuits on plates in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the biscuits as finely ground paste.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds into a paste and add structure as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface of the biscuits brown as they bake.
Nutmeg
Adds warm aromatic flavor to the paste.
Allspice
Adds warm aromatic flavor to the paste.

The step that matters

Pound the almonds very finely with the egg whites. Fine grinding releases the almond oils and spreads the egg whites evenly, giving a smooth paste. Coarse pieces leave the biscuits gritty and uneven in texture and make shaping harder.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, nutmeg, allspice. 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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