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Cinnamon Almonds

Almonds layered with sugar, gum Senegal, and cinnamon, then dried to a glossy finish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cinnamon Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Layer almonds with fine sugar in a pan.

  2. After every fourth layer of sugar, add gum Senegal and a little pulverized cinnamon.

  3. Continue layering until all ingredients are used.

  4. Allow the almonds to dry and develop a gloss.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Almonds
Form the bulk of the confection that the sugar coating and flavorings cling to.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness and forms the crystalline coating that dries into a glossy shell.
Gum senegal
Acts as a binder that helps the sugar coating adhere and contributes to the glossy finish.
Pulverized cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the sugar coating.

The step that matters

Allow the almonds to dry and develop a gloss. The gloss comes from the sugar and gum layers drying slowly on the almonds. Rushing this stage or handling the almonds too early can leave the coating sticky, dull, or unevenly set.

“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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