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Dessert

Green Almonds

A preserved almond confection soaked, boiled, and stored in progressively stronger syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Green Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Pierce the almonds with a needle and soak them in a strong potash bath for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  2. Rinse the almonds in cold running water for 15 minutes.

  3. Boil the almonds in water with 1 ounce of sulphite of soda per 4 gallons of water until softened.

  4. Rinse the almonds again in cold running water, then return them to the kettle.

  5. Boil the almonds in water lightly colored with emerald green food coloring.

Make the syrup and steep

  1. Place the almonds in stone jars and cover them with boiling syrup at 18° (sugar solution).

  2. Let the jars stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the syrup and reboil it at 20°.

  4. Pour the syrup back into the jars and repeat this process every two days, increasing the syrup strength until reaching 24°.

Can and process

  1. After three days, transfer the almonds to cans or jars, covering them with syrup at 25°, seal, and process.

  2. Process quart cans for 10 minutes, pint cans for 6 minutes, quart jars for 5 minutes, and pint jars for 3 minutes in boiling water.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Large unripe almonds
Form the main body of the sweet; they soften and absorb the syrup during cooking.
Potash
Alkaline bath that softens the almond skins and helps set the green color.
Sulphite of soda
Helps keep the almonds pale and firm during repeated boiling.
Sugar for syrup
Sweetens the almonds and, at rising strengths, preserves them by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Raising the syrup strength gradually. Moving the syrup from 18° to 25° in stages lets sugar penetrate the almonds slowly. A sudden jump in concentration can shrink or toughen the fruit and leave the centre under-sweetened.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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