Why it works: Almond and syrup work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 746 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Pralines
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the almonds
Rub the almonds in a clean cloth and sift them through a coarse sieve to remove dust.
Coat the almonds
In a small saucepan, bring the clarified syrup to a boil over medium heat.
Once boiling, add the almonds and essence, stirring gently with a wooden spoon.
Lift and turn the almonds to coat them in sugar, and remove the pan from heat when they start to crack.
When the sugar appears sandy, stop stirring and spread the almonds on a dry baking sheet to cool.
Build the coating
Pick out the coated almonds and return the leftover sugar to the pan with another ½ cup of syrup.
Add a few drops of carmine or cochineal and boil until it reaches the small crack stage.
Add the coated almonds back into the pan and stir gently for another sugar coating.
Repeat the coating process one or two more times until the pralines are hard and crisp.
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.
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Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Almonds
- Form the crunchy centre that the sugar coating clings to and hardens around.
- Clarified syrup
- Provides the sugar that cooks into a crisp, hard coating on the almonds.
The step that matters
Stopping the sugar at the right moment. Removing the pan as the almonds start to crack and stopping stirring when the sugar turns sandy controls crystallisation. Overcooking or stirring too late can make the coating grainy or burnt, while the later boil to the small crack stage is what gives the pralines their hard, crisp shell.
“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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