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Dessert

Hickory-nut Kisses

A sweet treat made from egg whites, flour, sugar, and hickory nuts, baked into small bite-sized pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Hickory-nut Kisses

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Fold in the hickory nuts and flour gently.

Bake

  1. Drop small teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto oiled baking sheets.

  2. Bake until lightly golden.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

  5. Flour + meattop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam that gives the kisses their light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Stabilizes the whipped whites and adds sweetness and browning.
Hickory nut meats
Add nutty flavor and body to the mixture.
White flour
Adds a little structure so the kisses hold their shape while baking.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat. Adding sugar slowly while beating lets it dissolve into the whites and helps build a stable, glossy foam. Dumping it in at once can deflate the foam and leave the kisses dense or weepy.

“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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