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Dessert

Buent Almonds

Candied almonds coated with a cinnamon‑flavored sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Buent Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sugar syrup

  1. In a large pot, combine sugar and water. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add the almonds and cook over low heat until the nuts stop cracking.

  3. Remove from heat and stir the mixture until the sugar granulates.

  4. Pour into a sieve to shake off excess sugar.

  5. Return the sugar to the pot with a little water to dissolve it.

  6. Cook until it reaches a soft ball stage.

Coat the almonds

  1. Add the almonds again and stir until the sugar granulates.

  2. Sieve to remove loose sugar as before.

  3. Add enough sugar to make 6 pounds and water to dissolve.

  4. Color the mixture deep red and cook to a soft ball stage.

  5. Add the almonds and stir while granulating the sugar, adding cinnamon.

  6. In a separate pot, heat dissolved gum arabic with burnt sugar color until boiling.

  7. Remove from heat and add the almonds, stirring until coated.

  8. Spread the almonds on a tray and place in a warm area to dry.

  9. For a hard coating, cook the sugar to a hard crack stage (290°F) instead of soft ball.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Almonds
Form the centre that the sugar coating builds up around.
Sugar
Forms the crisp, granulated outer coating when cooked and stirred.
Gum arabic
Helps the sugar coating adhere evenly to the almonds.

The step that matters

Stirring the sugar until it granulates. Stirring at the right moment turns the syrup into a fine sugar crust on each almond. Stirring too early or too late leaves a smooth glaze or clumps, and the cook must watch the syrup's stage closely.

“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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