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Dessert

Grilled Almonds

A caramelized almond confection made by boiling sugar and water, then frying almonds until the syrup coats them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar 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 ↓

Grilled Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dry the blanched almonds thoroughly.

  2. In a saucepan, boil the sugar and water until it reaches a 'hair' stage.

Coat the almonds

  1. Add the almonds to the syrup and stir occasionally as they fry.

  2. Watch for the almonds to turn a faint yellow-brown; do not wait too long.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until the syrup turns back to sugar and clings to the nuts.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Form the crunchy core that the sugar coating clings to and toasts.
Sugar
Melts into a syrup that coats the nuts and browns to add sweetness and flavour.

The step that matters

Removing the almonds at a faint yellow-brown. Sugar keeps darkening from residual heat once off the burner, so it can turn bitter quickly. Stirring off heat lets the syrup recrystallise into a dry, opaque coating on the nuts.

“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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