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Almond Paste

Almond paste is a sweet almond confection made by finely grinding almonds with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Remove the skins from the bitter almonds and pound both types of almonds very finely, using a little water to prevent them from becoming too wet.

Cook the paste

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the almond paste with the powdered sugar and mix well.

  2. Place the saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to prevent burning.

  3. Continue to cook until the paste no longer sticks to the pan and forms a cohesive mass.

  4. Dust your work surface with a little flour to prevent sticking.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and flavour of the paste once finely pounded.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharp, aromatic almond flavour to the paste.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps bind the paste as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat until the paste pulls away from the pan. Sugar and almond solids scorch easily on direct heat, so low heat and constant stirring prevent burning. Cooking until the mass no longer sticks shows that most of the moisture has evaporated and the paste has set into a workable dough.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Milletfits less well
  4. Cashew nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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