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Almond Tea Bars

A sweet, almond‑flavored bar made with sugar syrup, egg white, and blanched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond 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 ↓

Almond Tea Bars

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the topping

  1. Boil sugar and water until it forms threads.

  2. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  3. Slowly pour the boiling syrup over the egg white while whipping briskly.

  4. When the mixture begins to stiffen, add the chopped almonds.

Bake

  1. Spread the mixture on long-shaped crackers.

  2. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown lightly.

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. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped into a foam that gives the mixture its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Boiled into a syrup that sets firm and adds sweetness as the mixture cools.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the stiffened mixture.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling syrup into the egg white. Pour slowly while whipping briskly. The hot syrup cooks and sets the egg white proteins into a stable foam. Pouring too fast or whipping too little can deflate the foam or leave streaks of unset egg.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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