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Dessert

Penelope Biscuits

A sweet biscuit made with egg whites, yolks, butter, lard, sugar, flour, water, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Penelope Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the meringue base

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Mix in the sugar and water.

  3. Boil the mixture slowly until it ropes.

  4. Pour it over the egg whites and beat until cool.

  5. Work in the cinnamon.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter with the flour.

  2. Mix in the egg yolks, sugar, and lard.

Bake and finish

  1. Form into biscuits and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

  2. Cover with icing and let cool before serving.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 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. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they create the airy structure of the meringue base.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the dough together.
Butter
Creamed with flour to add tenderness and richness to the biscuit.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once combined with butter.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, when boiled, helps set the meringue mixture.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar and water until it ropes. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to form a thread. Too little boiling leaves it runny, while overboiling makes it hard and brittle, so the syrup may not blend properly into the whites.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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

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