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Dessert

Almond Short Bread

A shortbread cake made with sweet almonds, sugar, flour, butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

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.

Make the dough

  1. Pound the almonds with the sugar in a mortar.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Make a space in the center and drop in the egg yolks one by one.

  4. Melt the butter without making it oily and add it to the mixture.

  5. Mix all ingredients until you have a stiff paste.

  6. Roll out the dough about eight times, the last time to about ¼ inch thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into rounds and pinch the edges.

  2. Butter a baking tin, heat it, place the cakes on it, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until pale yellow.

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 + 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. 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 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the shortbread.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown lightly in the oven.
Fine flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough together after baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, crumbly texture and rich flavor.
Egg yolks
Bind the dough and add richness and color.

The step that matters

Melt the butter without making it oily. If the butter is overheated and separates, its fat and liquid split, making the paste greasy and loose. This changes the dough's texture and how it holds its shape while baking.

“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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