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Orgeat Syrup

A sweet almond syrup made by blending blanched almonds with lemon juice, water, and sugar.

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 lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Orgeat Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch sweet and bitter almonds in boiling water until skins peel off easily, then transfer to cold water.

  2. Pick the almonds and place them in a clean marble mortar.

Make the almond milk

  1. Pound the almonds with lemon juice, adding ½ pint of spring water gradually until smooth.

  2. Mix the almond paste with another ½ pint of water and strain through a cloth to collect the almond milk.

  3. Return the paste to the mortar, pound with a little more water, strain again, and combine with the almond milk.

Finish the syrup

  1. Clarify 3 lbs of sugar and boil it to a crack stage.

  2. Remove from heat, add the almond milk, return to heat, and bring to a boil, stirring continuously until well mixed.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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 flavor and the body of the almond milk.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated, characteristic almond aroma in small amounts.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and thickens the syrup as it is boiled.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Spring water
Extracts the almond milk from the pounded almond paste.

The step that matters

Stirring the almond milk into the hot sugar. Adding almond milk to hot syrup and reboiling can scorch on the bottom or separate. Stirring continuously keeps the mixture even and evenly combined as it comes to a boil.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe 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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