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Dessert

Almond Plombiere

A chilled almond custard dessert with candied fruit soaked in Kirsch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pine match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 176 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Plombiere

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Blanch the almonds and grind them very fine.

  2. In a mortar, add half the milk to the ground almonds and rub to a paste.

  3. Scald the remaining milk with the tea.

  4. Beat the egg yolks slightly, add sugar, and gradually pour in the scalded milk.

  5. Cook over hot water until the mixture thickens, then strain through cheesecloth.

  6. Combine the strained mixture with the milk and ground almonds.

  7. Add vanilla and heavy cream, then freeze the mixture.

Layer and chill

  1. In a brick mold, layer the mixture and cover with candied fruit soaked in Kirsch for two hours, repeating until the mold is full.

  2. Cover the mold, pack it in salt and ice, and let it stand for two hours.

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 + pinetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together176 recipes

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

  2. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and a fine, creamy body when ground into paste.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness to the frozen dessert.
Heavy cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture that resists becoming icy.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the almonds and egg yolks are combined into.
Kirsch
Adds aromatic flavour to the candied fruit and contributes to a softer frozen texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over hot water. Egg yolks thicken gently as they warm, but overheating can scramble them. Cooking slowly over hot water and stopping once the mixture thickens keeps the custard smooth before straining.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vanilla, milk, cream, tea, sugar, egg, pine. 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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