Skip to main content
Dessert

Vanilla Sticks

Vanilla sticks are almond-based sweet strips dusted with flour and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Vanilla Sticks

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the powdered sugar with the beaten egg whites, reserving some sugar for icing.

  2. Combine the remaining sugar mixture with the almonds and vanilla.

  3. Dust a board with flour, roll the mixture thin, and cut it into strips.

Ice and bake

  1. Ice the strips with the reserved sugar mixture before baking.

  2. Bake until golden 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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavor of the dough.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and, with the egg whites, binds the dough and forms the icing.
Egg whites
Bind the almonds and sugar into a cohesive dough that holds its shape when rolled.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and flavor to the dough.

The step that matters

Ice the strips before baking. Sugar icing applied before baking melts slightly and then sets as it heats, forming a coating that browns. Icing applied after baking would not caramelize and would sit as a separate layer.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Macadamia nutfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, vanilla, 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipes