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Dessert

Almond Bars

Almond Bars are a sweet baked treat made with sugar, flour, eggs, ammonia, and chopped almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Almond Bars

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, flour, eggs, ammonia, and chopped almonds until a dough forms.

Shape and glaze

  1. Roll the dough out on a clean surface to about 1 inch thick and 2 inches wide.

  2. Cut the dough into 4‑inch thick slices with a sharp knife.

  3. Place the slices on baking pans with the cut side facing up.

  4. Wash the tops with beaten egg.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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. Flour + almondtop 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. Flour + eggtop 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Flour and egg 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the bars brown as they bake.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough together and give the beaten egg glaze a glossy, browned top.
Ammonia
Acts as a leavening agent, releasing gas as it heats to lighten the bars.
Chopped almonds
Add texture and nutty flavour throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Bake in the preheated oven until golden. Ammonia-based leavening releases gas as it heats, so the dough should go into a fully preheated oven right away. Baking until golden sets the structure and develops browning, which indicates the bars are done.

“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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