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Dessert

Almond Cookies

Almond Cookies are small, almond-flavored cookies made with flour, sugar, butter, lard, and egg yolks.

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

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, and grated almonds.

  3. Work in butter and lard until combined.

  4. Add egg yolks and mix to form a smooth dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into walnut-sized balls and press with your thumb.

  2. Place on ungreased baking sheets and bake until pale pink.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully lift with a knife and transfer to a platter.

  2. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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. 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. Flour + sugartop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the cookies together.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a short, crumbly texture.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies tender and helps them stay soft.
Egg yolks
Add fat and emulsifiers that bind the dough into a smooth mass.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until pale pink. These cookies brown quickly at the edges if overbaked, so pull them when they are just pale pink. Carryover heat finishes the set and keeps them tender rather than dry or hard.

“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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