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Dessert

Bitter-almond Biscuits

A short, crisp biscuit made with bitter almonds, flour, sugar, butter, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bitter-almond Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch and finely chop the bitter almonds.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, sifted sugar, and butter until well combined.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until frothy, then gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Drop small amounts of the batter onto a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 10 to 12 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic almond aroma and flavour, with some texture from the chopped pieces.
Flour
Gives the batter its structure so the biscuits hold their shape while baking.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished biscuits.
Egg whites
Trapped air from whisking lightens the batter and helps the biscuits rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisking the whites until frothy traps air that lightens the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard would deflate it and produce flatter, denser biscuits.

“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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