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Viennese Biscuits, for Dessert

A sweet biscuit made from eggs, sugar, and flour, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Viennese Biscuits, for Dessert

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs for 15 minutes with the powdered sugar until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the flour and beat until the mixture is light and smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and prepare baking sheets by greasing and flouring them.

  2. Transfer the batter to a biscuit press and shape it onto the baking sheets, making them broad at the ends and narrow in the middle.

  3. Dredge powdered sugar over the tops of the biscuits.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven for about 8 minutes, or until lightly browned.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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
Whipped with sugar to trap air, giving the batter its light, airy structure.
Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the eggs hold air when beaten together.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the biscuits' shape as they bake.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar. Beating the eggs for a full 15 minutes incorporates the air that makes the biscuits light. Under-beaten batter bakes flat and dense, and over-mixing after the flour is added can knock out that air.

“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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