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Cinnamon Bars or Macaroni Sticks

A sweet almond paste bar flavored with cinnamon, frosted with a stiffened egg white and confectioners' sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cinnamon Bars or Macaroni Sticks

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Combine almond paste, confectioners' sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg white and mix until smooth.

  3. Pat and roll the mixture to ½ inch thick and 4 inches wide.

Frost and cut

  1. Prepare frosting by beating the egg white with ½ cup confectioners' sugar until stiff enough to spread.

  2. Spread the frosting quickly over the mixture before it forms a crust.

  3. Cut into strips measuring 4 by 4 inches.

Bake and serve

  1. Place on a greased and floured pan.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes at 300°F (150°C).

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Almond paste
Provides the dense, chewy body and nutty almond flavor of the bars.
Egg white
Binds the paste into a smooth mixture and whips into a stiff frosting that sets on top.
Confectioners' sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the paste, and whipped into the frosting it helps it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Spreading the frosting quickly. Beaten egg white with sugar begins to dry and form a crust on exposure to air, which can make it hard to spread evenly and can stop it bonding smoothly to the base. Spreading it promptly keeps the surface smooth and the layers joined.

“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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