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Dessert

Almond Pasties

A sweet pastry made from almond paste and flour, baked and topped with egg yolk and jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour 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 Pasties

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.

Make the pastes

  1. Mix the ground almonds, ½ pound powdered sugar, a few drops of essence of almonds, and the white of 1 egg to make a paste.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, butter, and the remaining powdered sugar, then work it into a paste with the whites of 2 eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out both pastes and place one on top of the other.

  2. Brush the top with the yolks of the eggs and sprinkle with a little chopped almond.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until they are a pale brown.

Finish

  1. Once cooled, ornament with jam.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Ground almonds
Form the main body of the almond paste, giving flavour and a moist, tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pastes and helps create a smooth, workable texture.
Flour
Gives the flour-and-butter paste structure so it holds its shape when rolled.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the flour paste.
Eggs
Bind the pastes and, as yolk, help the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until pale brown. Baking at the stated moderate heat until only pale brown is reached sets the pastes without over-browning the sugar and almonds, which can turn bitter and dry.

“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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