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Dessert

Orgeat Syrup

A syrup made from ground sweet and bitter almonds, water, sugar syrup, 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 almond milk

  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 boiling sugar syrup.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens to a syrupy consistency.

  3. Add 1/3 cup of orange flower water and continue boiling until it reaches a fine syrup.

Bottle

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

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 main body and nutty flavour of the syrup once ground and strained.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper, more aromatic almond note in small amount.
Sugar syrup
Supplies sweetness and, once boiled down, the thick syrupy body.
Orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma that defines the flavour of the orgeat.

The step that matters

Boil until syrupy. Boiling drives off water so the syrup thickens and keeps well; stopping early leaves it thin and more prone to spoiling, while over-boiling can make it too stiff and cloying. Add the orange flower water near the end so its delicate aroma is not lost to prolonged heat.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, syrup. 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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