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Dessert

To Make Ratafias

A sweet almond confection made by blending blanched almonds with orange‑flower water, egg whites, and sugar, then baking small drops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Make Ratafias

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. In a mortar, beat the almonds with a little orange‑flower water until very fine.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to a strong froth.

  2. Gradually add the pounded sugar to the egg whites, sifting it through a gauze sieve.

  3. Combine the almond mixture with the egg and sugar mixture, beating together for 10 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop the mixture in small drops the size of a nutmeg onto buttered parchment paper.

  2. Place the paper on a baking sheet and dust a little sugar over the drops.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and the bulk of the soft, paste-like structure.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, more pronounced almond aroma to the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they give the batter lift and help the cookies set in the oven.
Pounded lump sugar
Sweetens the batter and, with the egg whites, helps form a stable meringue-like structure.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a strong froth. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives the drops lift and a light texture. Under-whipped whites produce dense, flat ratafias, and the sugar should be added gradually so the foam stays stable.

Swap the orange

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

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

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