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Dessert

Wine Fingers

A pastry made with flour, butter, sugar, sherry, eggs, topped with sugar, almonds, cinnamon, baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Wine Fingers

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 the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, butter, sugar, sherry, and egg yolks until well combined.

  3. Knead the dough until smooth, then roll it out.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into long, thin strips.

  2. Brush the strips with the egg white.

  3. Sprinkle with sugar, sliced almonds, and pounded cinnamon.

  4. Bake until lightly colored.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, crumbly texture and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the strips brown lightly in the oven.
Sherry
Adds moisture and aroma to the dough.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough.
Egg white
Brushed on top to help the sprinkled toppings adhere and add a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly colored. Sugar browns quickly, so the strips can darken past pale gold in a short time. Checking color rather than relying only on time helps keep them lightly colored and prevents bitter, over-browned edges.

“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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