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Orgeat or Almond Syrup

A sweet almond syrup made by blending blanched almonds, bitter almonds, water, powdered sugar, and orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orgeat or Almond Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond milk

  1. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds to a smooth paste in a mortar.

  2. Add 1 pint of water to the almond paste and mix well.

  3. Place the mixture in a towel and twist to extract as much milk as possible.

Make the syrup

  1. Add 3 pounds of powdered sugar to the almond milk and dissolve it cold.

  2. Stir in a small quantity of orange flower water.

  3. Transfer the syrup to a closed jar and shake often to prevent separation.

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 + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and flavor of the almond milk.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more aromatic almond flavor in small amounts.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the almond milk and thickens it into a syrup as it dissolves.
Water
Extracts the almond milk from the ground almond paste.

The step that matters

Twisting the almond milk out of the towel. Almond solids hold a lot of liquid, and squeezing firmly extracts more milk and a smoother texture. Weak pressure leaves the milk thin and grainy, and the syrup may separate more easily later.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, 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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