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Dessert

Almond Creams

Almond creams are sweet bars made from ground almonds and cream, flavored and colored, then rolled and cut into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Thoroughly mix the ground almonds into the cream.

  2. Add the flavoring and coloring carefully, as they can be very strong.

Shape and set

  1. Turn the mixture onto a smooth board dusted with castor sugar.

  2. Roll out to about ½ inch thick and cut into squares or bars with a sharp knife.

  3. Place the sweets on a wire tray lined with white paper and dusted with castor sugar.

  4. Allow the sweets to harden in a dry place for 24 hours.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Prepared cream
Provides moisture and fat that bind the almonds into a soft, pliable paste.
Ground almonds
Supply the bulk and nutty texture that gives the sweets their body.

The step that matters

Adding the flavoring and coloring. Concentrated flavourings and colourings can be very strong, so adding too much can overpower the sweet or make its colour uneven. Adding them gradually and mixing well spreads them evenly through the paste.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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