Name: Almond Drops
Ingredients: ½ pound flour; 4-5 ounces sweet almonds, blanched; 2 ounces bitter almonds, blanched; ½ pound sugar; 4 yolks of eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt; white of 1 egg

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Drops

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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

On a clean surface, combine the flour and blanched sweet and bitter almonds, pounded with a little white of egg.
Add the sugar, yolks of eggs, and salt; mix into a paste.
Form the mixture into small rolls and cut into pieces the size of a small nutmeg.

Shape and bake

Shape each piece into a round ball and place them half an inch apart on sheets of paper on baking tins.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15-20 minutes.

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.

Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Flour and egg 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the drops together as they bake.
Sweet almonds: Supply the main nutty flavour and fat, giving the drops a tender crumb.
Bitter almonds: Add a deeper, more intense almond aroma to the dough.
Sugar: Sweetens the drops and helps them brown during baking.
Egg yolks: Bind the paste and add richness and moisture to the dough.

“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.