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Almond Crockets

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Almond Crockets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Wipe the almonds to remove dust and pound them in a mortar with a few drops of orange-flower water until a pulp forms.

  2. Mix in the flour, sugar, orange zest, whole eggs, and egg yolk by pounding all together.

  3. Knead the paste on a floured surface, then roll it out with a rolling pin.

  4. Place the rolled dough on a greased baking sheet and brush with egg.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  6. While hot, cut into thin slices and dry on a baking sheet in the oven.

  7. Moisten the edges of the dried slices with royal icing and dip in finely-chopped pistachio kernels. Let dry for a few minutes.

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 + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Orange + pistachiotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, almond, sugar, egg, pistachio. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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