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Dessert

Brown Almond Bar

A sweet candy made from sugar, water, almonds, and cream of tartar, browned and cut into strips.

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 ↓

Brown Almond Bar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Dissolve the cream of tartar in the water.

  2. Combine the dissolved cream of tartar and sugar in a granite saucepan.

  3. Bring to a boil, then slowly add the almonds while stirring.

  4. Boil until the almonds are browned to your liking and slide off a lifted spoon easily.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the candy into a greased pan, 1 inch thick.

  2. Once cool, cut into strips using a heavy knife and a hammer.

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. Almond + creamtop 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 base and, once cooked, sets into a hard, sweet brittle.
Almonds
Provide the crunchy texture and nutty flavor, and brown in the hot syrup.
Cream of tartar
Its acidity helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing, keeping the candy smooth.

The step that matters

Boil until the almonds are browned and the spoon test passes. Sugar syrup hardens as its water boils off, so stopping too early leaves the brittle soft and sticky, while cooking too long darkens and bitters the sugar and almonds.

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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