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Dessert

Narbonne Biscuits

Honey and almond biscuits baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Narbonne Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the honey and butter over gentle heat.

  2. Gradually add the flour, ground or chopped almonds, ground cloves, lemon rind, vanilla, and brandy.

  3. Dissolve the carbonate of soda in hot water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Cover the mixture with a clean cloth and refrigerate overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly, adding more flour if needed, and cut into finger shapes.

  2. Bake in a gentle oven (300°F/150°C) until crisp.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Honey + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,262 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides sweetness and moisture, and helps bind the dough together.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once it is rolled and baked.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the biscuits.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the honey's acidity to lighten the dough and aid browning.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thinly. Thin pieces dry out and crisp evenly in a gentle oven, while thick pieces stay soft in the centre. Adding flour only as needed keeps the dough workable without making it tough.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, butter, almond, clove, flour, vanilla, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, butter, almond, clove, flour, vanilla, brandy. 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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