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 ↓
Almond Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the almonds
Blanch the almond nuts and cover them with water for 4 to 5 hours.
Drain the almonds.
Pound the almonds in a mortar to a smooth paste, adding a little orange flower water to prevent oiling.
Make and store the paste
In a pot, cook the sugar over heat until it reaches a crack stage.
Remove the pot from heat and add the almond paste, stirring continuously until the mixture cools.
Transfer the paste into a crock for storage.
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.
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Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,125 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together394 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Nuts + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together280 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Almond nuts
- Provide the bulk of the paste, with their oils giving it a rich, smooth body when pounded.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the paste and, cooked to crack stage, firms it as it cools.
- Orange flower water
- Adds aroma and is used in small amounts to help prevent the paste from oiling.
The step that matters
Stirring the sugar mixture as it cools. Sugar cooked to crack stage sets firm as it cools, so stirring constantly keeps it evenly blended with the almonds and prevents a grainy or uneven texture.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar, orange):
- Pistachiofits better
- Brazil nutfits better
- Cashew nutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, orange. 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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