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Dessert

Almond. Cheese-cakes.

A tartlet filled with a mixture of sweet and bitter almonds, sugar, cream, butter, egg whites, and lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond. Cheese-cakes.

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a mortar, adding a few drops of water to prevent oiling.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine sugar, cream, melted butter, beaten egg whites, and pounded almonds.

  2. Stir in the essence of lemon and mix well.

Bake

  1. Line small tartlet pans with light pastry and fill with the almond mixture.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°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 + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the filling.
Egg whites
Set during baking to give the filling structure and a light, cake-like texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds with a few drops of water. Water keeps the ground almonds from releasing their oil as they are crushed, which would make the filling greasy and less smooth when mixed and baked.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, cream, butter, walnut, 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.

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