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Dessert

Anise Zwieback

A German pastry made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, flour, and anise seeds, baked and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Anise and flour work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 270 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Anise Zwieback

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until creamy.

  3. Combine the egg yolk mixture with the egg whites and stir for 20 minutes.

  4. Add the anise seeds and flour, stirring until smooth.

Bake and slice

  1. Pour the batter into long, narrow tins and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Once partly cooled, cut into ¾‑inch slices and return to the oven to brown.

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. Anise + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + anisetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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 to stiffness, they trap air and give the zwiebäck a light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, softening the crumb and adding tenderness.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the yolks whip to a creamy texture.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the batter into a firm, sliceable crumb.

The step that matters

Returning the slices to the oven to brown. Slices must be dried and browned evenly; too little time leaves them soft, while too much time scorches the sugar and darkens them unevenly. Watching colour closely prevents this.

Swap the anise

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Anisethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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