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Dessert

Maids of Honour

A puff pastry tartlet filled with almond and sugar mixture, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Maids of Honour

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Blanch and dry the almonds, then pound them in a mortar with the sugar until fine.

  2. Add the egg, then mix in the flour, cream, and orange-flower water.

Bake

  1. Line 8 or 9 small tartlet molds with the puff pastry.

  2. Fill the molds with the mixture and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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 egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling while it bakes.
Jordan almonds
Provide the body and nutty flavour of the filling once pounded fine.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the almonds break down into a smooth paste.
Egg
Binds the filling and helps it set into a tender custard-like texture.
Fine flour
Adds structure so the filling holds its shape rather than spreading.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft after baking.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds fine. If the almonds are left coarse, the filling will be gritty and uneven. Fine pounding with sugar releases oils and gives a smooth, evenly set texture.

Swap the orange

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

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

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