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Dessert

Savoy Biscuits

Savoy biscuits are sweet, almond-flavored biscuits made with butter, flour, eggs, and water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Savoy Biscuits

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 ↓

Savoy Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the choux paste

  1. In a large stewpan, bring the water to a boil.

  2. Stir in the butter and any desired fruit, then bring to a boil again.

  3. Add the flour and continue to stir until boiling.

  4. Remove from heat and let sit for 4-5 minutes, then beat in the eggs one at a time.

Shape and bake

  1. Using a piping bag, pipe out finger-sized pieces onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until nearly done.

  3. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and water, then return to the oven until the sugar melts.

  4. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with chopped almonds and sugar.

  5. Bake slowly until golden brown.

Fill and serve

  1. Once cooled, make an incision in the side and fill with preserve or cream.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, setting the choux paste as it bakes and puffs.
Flour
Provides the starch that gelatinises with the water and sets the paste's structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the paste.
Water
Creates the steam that puffs the paste and hydrates the flour.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until golden brown. Baking too hot browns the outside before the interior dries, so the biscuits can collapse or stay soft inside. A gentle finish lets the interior dry and the surface colour evenly.

“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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