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 Bread
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.
Make the dough
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the chopped sweet and bitter almonds, lemon zest, and flour until combined.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut with a round cutter.
Place the cut pieces on a baking sheet and bake until golden.
Finish
Once baked, cover with Royal Icing, tinted and flavored as desired.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the dough and dissolves easily, helping create a fine, tender crumb.
- Sweet almonds
- Add nutty flavor and a slightly firm texture to the dough.
- Bitter almonds
- Add a sharp, aromatic almond flavor that balances the sweetness.
The step that matters
Creaming the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Beating air into the butter and sugar creates tiny pockets that give the dough lift and a tender texture. Under-creamed butter leaves a dense, heavy bread.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, butter, egg, flour, sugar):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, egg, flour, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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