Skip to main content
Sauce

Almond Sauce

A sauce made from sweet and bitter almonds, cream, sugar, and egg yolks, thickened over boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the almonds in a saucepan with the cream and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and stir over boiling water until thickened.

  3. Optionally, flavor with bitter almond extract.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond body, fat and texture once pounded into the sauce.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated, pronounced almond aroma and flavor.
Cream
Adds richness, fat and a smooth, silky moisture to the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the almonds.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as their proteins set when gently heated.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg yolks and stir over boiling water until thickened. Egg yolk proteins set as they warm, thickening the sauce. If the heat is too fierce or the yolks are left too long, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps it smooth.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes