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Burnt Almonds

A confection of almonds coated in clarified sugar and flavored with orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Burnt Almonds

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 ↓

Burnt Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 2 pounds of clarified sugar to the 'Ball' stage.

  2. Add 1 pound of blanched and dried almonds to the pan with the sugar.

  3. Stir the almonds and remove from heat, allowing them to absorb as much sugar as possible.

  4. If desired, repeat the process to saturate the almonds with more sugar.

  5. Flavour with orange-flower water.

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 + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange 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

Sugar
Boils to a syrup that coats and sweetens the almonds, then crystallises into a crisp shell.
Almonds
Provide the crunchy, nutty core that the sugar syrup coats and absorbs into.
Orange-flower water
Adds a floral aroma that flavours the sugar coating.

The step that matters

Stirring the almonds and removing from heat. Sugar must be stirred as it cools so it crystallises and turns opaque on the almonds rather than forming a single hard lump. Removing from heat at the right moment lets the syrup absorb into the nuts before it sets.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond. 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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