Skip to main content
Dessert

Ratafia-Drops

A sweet almond drop candy made with bitter and sweet almonds, sugar, egg whites, and noyeau.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ratafia-Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Blanch and pound the bitter and sweet almonds with fine sugar and a little water.

Make the batter

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar, the whites of 2 eggs, and a little noyeau to the almond paste.

  2. Beat the mixture well until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop the batter from a biscuit funnel onto paper, forming pieces the size of pigeons' eggs.

  2. Bake on tins until firm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic almond flavour and aroma of the drops.
Sweet almonds
Form the bulk of the almond paste, giving body and a mild nutty flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the drops and helps them set firm as they bake.
Eggs whites
Whipped with the paste, they add lightness and help the drops hold their shape.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture until light. Beating incorporates air into the egg whites, which gives the batter lift. Under-beating leaves the drops dense and flat, while the batter must still hold its shape when dropped.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes