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Dessert

Pecan Kisses

A baked treat of egg whites, sugar, pecans, and almond extract.

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 ↓

Pecan Kisses

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat until stiff.

  2. Add the cream of tartar and sugar, and continue to beat until very stiff.

  3. Blend the flour with the chopped pecans, then stir this mixture into the egg mixture along with the almond extract.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto greased parchment paper and bake for about 25 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 + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

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

  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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the cookies their light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Stabilizes the whipped whites and adds sweetness and a crisp, dry exterior.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, stabilizing the foam so it holds its volume longer.
Chopped pecans
Add texture and nutty flavor, and body to the batter.
Flour
Lightly binds the pecans into the batter so they stay distributed through the cookies.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to very stiff. Under-beaten whites will not hold enough air, so the cookies spread and turn dense. Over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy and lose their structure. Beat until the peaks are firm and glossy, and fold the flour and pecans in gently to keep that air.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

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