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Almond Biscuits

Almond biscuits made with almond paste, sugar, rice flour, eggs, spices, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Almond Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix almond paste, sifted sugar, rice flour, and eggs until well combined.

  2. Season the mixture with mace, cloves, cinnamon, and lemon zest.

Bake

  1. Butter the moulds and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Sift sugar over the filled moulds.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for a short time until done.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almond paste
Provides the main almond flavour and a moist, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to give structure.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the biscuits and helps form a light, delicate crust.
Rice flour
Adds a little structure while staying light and gluten-free.

The step that matters

Baking until done. Because the time is only given as a short period, the biscuits can dry out or stay wet inside if removed too early or too late. Watching for a set top and a firm centre helps the eggs and almond paste cook through evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, rice, flour, egg, clove, cinnamon. 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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