Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Short Bread

A shortbread biscuit made with flour, cornflour, almonds, butter, sugar, egg yolk, and almond essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Almond Short Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the all-purpose flour and cornflour into a bowl.

  2. Rub the butter into the flours until well combined.

  3. Add the sugar, almond essence, and half of the chopped almonds.

  4. Incorporate the egg yolk and knead until smooth and crack-free.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Brush the tops with egg white and sprinkle with the remaining chopped almonds.

  3. Bake for about 12 minutes in a moderate oven at 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. Flour + almondtop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the shortbread together.
Cornflour
Lowers the gluten in the flour, giving a finer, more tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that coats the flour particles, giving richness and a crumbly, short texture.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the shortbread brown lightly during baking.
Blanched and chopped almonds
Add nutty flavour and a slight crunch to the dough and topping.
Egg yolk
Binds the dough and adds richness so it holds together when rolled.

The step that matters

Knead until smooth, then stop. Overworking the dough develops gluten, which makes shortbread tough instead of tender. Knead only until the dough is smooth and free of cracks, then shape it promptly.

“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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes