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Dessert

Almond Squares

A baked almond and butter dough cut into squares, glazed with egg white and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Squares

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, stir together the butter, chopped almonds, and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the chopped lemon peel, lemon juice, flour, and cinnamon, and mix until well combined.

  4. Roll out the dough in small portions on a floured surface.

  5. Cut the rolled dough into squares about 1 inch wide and 2 inches long.

Glaze and bake

  1. Brush the tops with egg white and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, carrying the flavour and helping the dough hold together.
Almonds
Provide nutty flavour and a crumbly, tender texture in the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the squares together as they bake.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that balances the sweetness and richness.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly golden. Baking only until lightly golden keeps the squares tender and prevents the sugar and butter from over-browning and turning bitter.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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