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Dessert

Florentine Meringue

A puff pastry sheet topped with jam, meringue, almonds, and powdered sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Florentine Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Cut the pastry into a piece 10 inches long by 7 inches wide.

  2. Place it on a baking sheet and wet the edges.

  3. Create a ½ inch rim by folding the edges over.

  4. Prick the pastry with a fork six times.

Bake and top

  1. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until golden.

  2. Cool the pastry and spread with jam.

  3. Top with Meringue II and sprinkle with shredded almonds and powdered sugar.

  4. Return to the oven and bake until the meringue is set.

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 + 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

Puff or plain pastry
Forms the crisp, golden base that holds the jam and meringue.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour between the pastry and meringue.
Meringue ii
Forms a light, set, crisp-topped layer when baked.
Blanched and shredded almonds
Adds crunch and nutty aroma to the meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Dusting sugar that adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly.

The step that matters

Return to the oven and bake until the meringue is set. Meringue is mostly egg white and sugar; underbaking leaves it soft and weepy, while overbaking makes it dry and overly brown. Watching for a set, dry surface matters.

“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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