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 Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
Cream together the butter, sugar, and eggs.
Add the chopped almonds and enough sifted flour to form a dough.
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Brush the tops with a little cold water or milk.
Sprinkle with sugar and chopped nuts before baking.
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 + nutstop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together394 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + almondtop 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 + nutstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 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
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, almond, egg, flour):
- Pistachiofits better
- Macadamia nutfits better
- Cashew nutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, almond, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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