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Dessert

German Almond Pie

A sweet pie with almonds, preserves or prunes, sugar, cinnamon, and a dough of those ingredients, topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

German Almond Pie

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. Do not blanch almonds or chop them too finely.

  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and work into a smooth dough using your hands.

  3. Keep the dough as cool as possible.

  4. Check the dough; if it runs too much, add more flour.

Fill and shape

  1. Flour your pie tins and roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick.

  2. Fill the pie with preserves or prepared prunes, adding sugar and cinnamon to taste.

  3. Roll small strips of dough, about the size of a pencil, and criss‑cross them over the pie, sealing the edges.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes or until well done.

  2. Sprinkle with powdered sugar when done.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the dough, with texture from their unblanched, coarsely chopped pieces.
Good preserves or cooked prunes
Supply moisture, sweetness and fruity flavour to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the dough and filling and helps with browning.
Flour
Helps bind the dough so it can be rolled and shaped, and absorbs excess moisture.

The step that matters

Keep the dough cool. Warm dough becomes soft and sticky because its fat softens, making it hard to roll and shape. Keeping it cool keeps the fat firm, so the crust holds its shape and bakes tender rather than greasy.

“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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