Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Almonds

A confection of almonds coated in a sweet syrup and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cream Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds and syrup

  1. Warm the almonds in a clean kettle until hot and keep them warm.

  2. In a separate pot, cook the sugar and water to 242°F (117°C).

  3. Add the vanilla extract to the syrup and set the kettle on a stable surface.

Coat the almonds

  1. Have a helper pour ½ pint of syrup over the almonds while you stir them with a small spoon.

  2. Sprinkle a handful of powdered sugar over the almonds and stir well.

  3. Continue adding syrup gradually while stirring until half of it is used.

  4. Once half the syrup is on, stop using the spoon and rotate the kettle in a circular motion to coat the almonds.

  5. Pick the almonds apart occasionally to ensure even coating.

  6. Continue until all the sugar is used, then sift off any loose sugar.

Set and dry

  1. Transfer the almonds to crystal pans and prepare a hot syrup at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the almonds and let them set for 3 hours.

  3. Drain off the syrup and allow the pans to dry for several hours before storing.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Jordan almonds
Form the centre of each piece, giving the coating something to grip and bulk.
Sugar
Forms the crisp, hard sugar shell around the almonds as the syrup cools and sets.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma to the sugar coating.

The step that matters

Coating with syrup while rotating the kettle. Syrup must be added gradually while stirring and the almonds picked apart, so each layer dries thinly and evenly. Adding too much at once makes clumps and uneven, sticky coatings.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla. 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipes