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Dessert

Almond Candy

A sweet candy made from sugar, water, cream of tartar, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Candy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Add cream of tartar and continue boiling until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  3. Stir in the almonds and cook until they are light brown.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased pan and cut into bars before it cools.

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. Sugar + creamtop 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. Sugar + almondtop 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

Sugar
Forms the candy's structure and provides its sweetness as it cooks and sets.
Cream of tartar
Its acidity helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing, keeping the candy smooth.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor, which deepens as they brown in the hot syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling to the soft ball stage. The syrup's sugar concentration, set by how long it boils, determines the candy's final texture. Stopping too early leaves it soft and sticky, while going too far makes it hard and brittle or scorched.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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