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Dessert

Maids of Honour

A pastry tartlet filled with a sweet almond and sugar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Maids of Honour

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 filling

  1. Blanch and dry the almonds, then pound them with the sugar in a mortar until fine.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the flour, cream, and orange-flower water until combined.

Bake

  1. Line 8 or 9 small tartlet molds with pastry and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 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 + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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 egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Castor sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the almonds break down into a fine paste.
Jordan almonds
Provide the nutty body and bulk of the almond filling.
Fine flour
Gives the filling enough structure to set as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind and set the filling as it bakes.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and tender.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds fine with the sugar. Almonds left in coarse pieces give a gritty texture and uneven filling. Pounding them with sugar grinds them finer and draws out moisture, producing a smooth, even mixture.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, flour, egg, cream. 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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