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Dessert

Dessert Biscuits

Dessert biscuits made from ground rice, almonds, arrowroot, sugar, cinnamon, milk, butter, baked and decorated with candied peel and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dessert Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix ground rice, ground almonds, dry arrowroot, sifted sugar, and ground cinnamon thoroughly.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine cold milk and butter, breaking the butter into small lumps.

  3. Mix the milk and butter into the dry ingredients to form a dry paste.

Rest and shape

  1. Let the mixture rest in a warm place for about an hour.

  2. Roll out the paste to a thickness of about ½ inch.

Bake and decorate

  1. Flour a large baking tin and place the biscuits with space between them.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until they turn a rich yellow or light brown.

  3. Decorate each biscuit with a strip of candied peel and one or two blanched almonds.

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 + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Arrowroot + flourtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together525 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Arrowroot + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Forms the main body of the biscuits, giving a firm, crumbly structure without gluten.
Ground almonds
Adds a tender, crumbly texture and a nutty flavour.
Dry arrowroot
Starch that helps give a light, short texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown in the oven.
Butter
Fat that coats the flour particles, making the biscuits short and tender.
Cold milk
Moistens the dry ingredients so they hold together as a paste.

The step that matters

Bake until the colour is right, not just for the set time. Browning comes from sugar caramelising and Maillard reactions, so the colour is the best guide. Biscuits left in too long keep darkening after leaving the oven and can turn bitter.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, almond, sugar, cinnamon, milk, butter, flour):

  1. Arrowrootthe original
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Beetrootfits less well
  4. Parsnipfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, almond, sugar, cinnamon, milk, 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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