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Almond Heaps

Almond Heaps are almond and citron cakes baked with egg whites and powdered sugar.

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 ↓

Almond Heaps

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Blanch the almonds and peel them.

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

  3. Place the citron strips in the oven and brown lightly.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar while stirring for 30 minutes.

  2. Fold in the almonds and flour.

Bake

  1. On wax paper, drop heaping tablespoons of the mixture.

  2. Bake until lightly browned.

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. Almond + sugartop 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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the cookie.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the heaps lift and an airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves into the whipped whites for a smooth, stable meringue.
Flour
Adds a small amount of starch that helps the heaps hold their shape while baking.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be whipped to a firm foam before the sugar is added gradually; under-beaten whites lose volume, and the heaps will spread and bake flat and dense.

“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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