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Orgeat Syrup

A syrup made from almond paste, sugar, water, orange flower water, and boiled sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Orgeat Syrup

Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orgeat Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond base

  1. Pound the sewet and bitter almonds very fine until no pieces of almond remain.

  2. Mix the almond mixture with 1 quart of water and strain through a fine cloth.

  3. Add ½ cup of orange flower water to the strained mixture.

Make and bottle the syrup

  1. In a pot, bring 2 quarts of syrup to a boil until it is almost caramel.

  2. Combine the strained almond mixture with the boiling syrup and let it boil until it becomes a fine syrup.

  3. Pour the syrup into bottles while warm, cork them the next day, and cover the corks with bladders.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Sewet (sugar)
Provides sweetness and the syrup's body and thickness.
Bitter almonds
Supply the characteristic nutty, almond flavour of the syrup.
Orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma that rounds out the almond flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until almost caramel. Sugar darkens quickly near caramelisation, so it can turn bitter and change the flavour if boiled too long. Watch the colour closely and stop before it browns.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, 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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