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Orgeat Syrup

A sweet almond syrup made with sweet and bitter almonds, water, sugar, and orange‑flower water.

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 almonds

  1. Finely pound the sweet and bitter almonds until no pieces remain.

  2. Mix the ground almonds with 1 quart of water and strain through a fine cloth.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine the strained almond mixture with 2 quarts of sugar and bring to a boil until it thickens to a syrup.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of orange-flower water and continue boiling until it reaches a caramel-like consistency.

Bottle

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

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

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Orange and sugar 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the nutty base flavor and the body of the syrup.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more pronounced almond aroma.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as water boils off, thickens the mixture into a syrup.
Orange-flower water
Adds a floral aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until caramel-like. As water evaporates, the sugar concentrates and the syrup thickens. Boiling too long can darken the sugar and scorch it, so the consistency needs close watching.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar. 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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