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Ratafia Biscuits

Almond biscuits made with sweet and bitter almonds, powdered sugar, and egg whites.

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

Prepare

  1. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a mortar until very fine.

  2. Mix the powdered sugar with the whites of eggs in a bowl until the proper thickness.

Shape and bake

  1. Place two or three sheets of paper on a baking plate.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the paper, shaping them into rounds about the size of a large nutmeg.

  3. Bake in a quick oven until they are a fine brown, ensuring they do not burn on the bottom.

  4. Allow the biscuits to cool 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. 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
Provide the main nutty flavour and the bulk of the almond paste structure.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, more intense almond aroma to the biscuits.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the biscuits and, with egg whites, forms the body of the mixture.
Whites of eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set and rise into light, crisp biscuits when baked.

The step that matters

Bake until fine brown without burning the bottom. Sugar and egg white brown quickly in a hot oven, so the base can scorch before the tops colour. Watching the bottoms and keeping the sheet positioned well protects against bitter, burnt flavour.

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.

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