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Dessert

Ratafia Biscuits

A biscuit made from sweet almonds, egg whites, and powdered sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch and clean the almonds.

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

Make the paste

  1. Add the powdered sugar and mix for 15 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Dress the biscuits on strong paper, ensuring they do not touch each other.

  2. Fill a bladder with the paste and drop it onto the paper.

  3. Bake in a warm oven until set.

  4. If they stick, wet the paper and dry them in a 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. 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 body and nutty flavour of the paste.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds and set into a light, firm structure when baked.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the almond and egg mixture.

The step that matters

Dressing the biscuits apart on the paper. The paste spreads somewhat as it bakes and sets. If the biscuits touch, they can fuse together and lose their individual shape, so spacing them keeps each one distinct.

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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