Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Syrup.

A sweet syrup made from blanched almonds, lemon juice, gum arabic, sugar, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Almond Syrup.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond milk

  1. Blanch and wash the almonds in clean water.

  2. Mash the almonds in a mortar.

  3. Add lemon juice, gum arabic, and ½ pint of water to the mashed almonds.

  4. Add another ½ pint of water and squeeze the mixture through a cloth into a clean basin.

  5. Mash the remaining almonds again with ½ pint of water and strain.

Make the syrup

  1. Mix the strained almond milk with 4 pounds of sugar.

  2. Gently boil the syrup for 1 minute after the sugar dissolves, then remove from heat and skim off the scum.

  3. Stir the syrup until cold, pass it through a cloth, and add a little orange-flower water before bottling.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 main almond flavour and body of the syrup.
Gum arabic
Adds thickness and body, helping the syrup feel smooth and stay emulsified.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, when boiled, thickens it into a syrup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Gently boil the syrup for 1 minute after the sugar dissolves. Boiling too hard or too long can darken the syrup and drive off flavour, while skimming removes scum that would cloud it. A brief gentle boil keeps the syrup clear, fresh-tasting and stable.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, orange. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes