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Dessert

Almond Coupeaux

A sweet almond paste baked into a thin, oval-shaped confection.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Almond Coupeaux

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Blanch the almonds and grind them with the egg whites into a fine paste.

  2. Mix in the powdered sugar and grated lemon rind.

  3. Stir in the orange flower water until the paste is thin.

Shape and bake

  1. Spoon the mixture onto a bright copper plate in an oval shape, about 3-4 inches long.

  2. Strike the plate on a table to extend the paste slightly.

  3. Bake until the color turns deep yellow.

Finish

  1. Remove from the plate with a knife and shape while hot using a wooden roller.

  2. Press to form and let cool before storing in a dry box.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the bulk of the paste, giving the cookie its body and nutty flavor.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds into a paste and help the cookie hold its shape.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the paste for a smooth texture.
Orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma and thins the paste to a spreadable consistency.

The step that matters

Bake until the color turns deep yellow. The paste browns through sugar and protein reactions, so pulling it too early leaves it pale and underdeveloped in flavor, while overbaking turns it bitter.

“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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