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Dessert

Almond Biscuit

A sweet almond cookie made by blending almonds, egg white, and sugar, then baking until pale brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Almond Biscuit

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 the almond paste

  1. Blanch and dry the almonds in a cloth.

  2. Pound the almonds in a mortar with the egg white until smooth.

  3. Add the sugar to the almonds and mix well.

  4. Incorporate more egg whites until the mixture is a smooth, stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Use a piping bag to squeeze the mixture into various shapes on grey paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until pale brown and they lift off the paper easily.

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. Egg + sugartop 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the biscuit.
Egg white
Binds the ground almonds into a smooth, stiff paste that holds its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the biscuit and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Incorporating the egg whites into the paste. Egg white must be added gradually so the mixture becomes a smooth, stiff paste. Too much liquid makes the paste slack, so the piped shapes spread and lose their form in the oven.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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