Skip to main content
Dessert

Biscuits Aux Pistaches—

A baked biscuit made with sugar, flour, eggs, whole and sliced pistachios, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 505 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Biscuits Aux Pistaches—

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine pounded sugar, sifted flour, and eggs. Beat for 10 minutes.

  2. Fold in whole pistachios.

Bake and cut

  1. Spread the mixture on a buttered baking sheet, 5 inches wide and 10 inches long, in an even layer.

  2. Top with cut pistachios.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 40-50 minutes.

  4. Remove from the sheet, cut into pieces 2¼ inches long and ⅓ inch wide.

  5. Dry the pieces on a baking sheet in the oven.

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. Flour + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and give the biscuits structure as they set.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter hold its beaten airiness.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that sets the biscuit once baked.
Whole pistachios
Add nutty flavor and crunchy texture within the batter.

The step that matters

Beat for 10 minutes. Long beating traps air in the egg and sugar mixture, which gives the baked biscuit its light, open crumb. Under-beating leaves it dense.

Swap the pistachio

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiothe original

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

You might also like

Pistachio Ice CreamPistachio Ice Cream36 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes