Name: Jasmine Biscuits
Ingredients: 1 cup powdered sugar; 6 egg whites; Jasmine flowers

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Jasmine Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

1 cup powdered sugar
6 egg whites
Jasmine flowers

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make and shape

Beat the egg whites with the powdered sugar and freshly gathered jasmine flowers.
Shape the mixture into small biscuits.
Place the biscuits on parchment paper.

Bake

Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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.

Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + jasminetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24 recipes
Egg + jasminetop 46% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites: Whipped into a foam that gives the biscuits their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the biscuits and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Jasmine flowers: Add a floral aroma to the biscuits.

“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.