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Dessert

Hungarian or Presburg Zwieback

A crisp, sweet biscuit made with egg whites, powdered sugar, almonds, and flour, topped with a meringue icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hungarian or Presburg Zwieback

Ingredients

Directions

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into long fingers, making the ends larger than the center, similar to ladyfingers.

  2. Proof the dough.

  3. Bake the dough like other zwieback.

Toast

  1. Cut the zwieback in halves.

  2. Dry-toast the halves.

Make the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar.

  3. Mix in the chopped almonds.

Finish and dry

  1. Spread the icing on the toasted side of the zwieback.

  2. Return the zwieback to the oven to dry.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Egg whites
Beaten to a stiff foam that gives the icing lightness and body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the icing and stiffens the whipped whites into a spreadable coating.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the icing.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the shaped dough together through baking.

The step that matters

Adding the powdered sugar. Sugar should be added gradually to stiff egg whites. Adding it too fast deflates the foam, so the icing loses its volume and will not spread or dry as intended.

“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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