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Dessert

Almond Pasties

A sweet pastry made with almond paste and a butter dough, baked and topped with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Almond Pasties

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastes

  1. Mix the ground almonds, ¼ pound of powdered sugar, a few drops of essence of almonds, and the whites of 1 egg to make a paste.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, butter, and the remaining ¼ pound of powdered sugar, then work in the whites of 2 eggs to form a paste.

  3. Roll out both pastes and place one on top of the other.

Bake and finish

  1. Brush the top with the yolks of the eggs and sprinkle with chopped almonds.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until pale brown.

  3. Once cooled, ornament with jam.

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. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Ground almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and a moist, dense texture to the almond paste.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry that holds the two pastes together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich pastry texture.
Eggs
Whites bind the pastes into a paste; yolks brushed on top promote browning.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pastes and helps them brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until pale brown. The pasties need to be removed as soon as they reach a pale golden brown. Sugar and egg proteins brown quickly, so over-baking can darken and dry the pastry.

“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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