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Dessert

Almond Caramel Baskets

A confection of caramelized blanched almonds shaped into baskets and decorated with pistachios, biscuits, or liqueur drops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Almond Caramel Baskets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Cut the blanched almonds into long slices.

  2. Color the almond slices pink with cochineal.

Make the caramel and coat

  1. Melt the powdered sugar over moderate heat in a small copper pan, stirring until it turns a clear brown color.

  2. Add the sliced almonds to the melted sugar and mix until the almonds are well coated.

Shape the baskets

  1. Grease a sheet of copper or tin with butter.

  2. Arrange the pink almonds in the shape of half a mold on the sheet.

  3. Spin the melted sugar over the almonds to fix them together.

  4. Turn the almonds and spin the melted sugar over the other side.

  5. Apply the almonds to your mold.

  6. Secure them with more melted sugar.

  7. Trim any excess.

Decorate

  1. Decorate the basket with small pieces of pistachios, biscuits, or liqueur drops.

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 + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Pistachio + biscuittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Almond + biscuittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Form the basket's structure and provide the crunchy body of the shell.
Powdered sugar
Melts to a clear brown caramel that coats the almonds and binds them together.

The step that matters

Melting the sugar to a clear brown. Sugar darkens quickly once it passes the right point, so it can turn bitter and burnt. Stirring over moderate heat and stopping at clear brown keeps the caramel fluid and flavourful enough to bind the almonds.

“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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