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Burnt Almonds

A confection of almonds coated in caramelized sugar and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Burnt Almonds

Why it works: Almond and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,733 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Burnt Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Dust the almonds well without blanching them.

Make the sugar coating

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

  2. Add the almonds and stir until they begin to crack.

  3. Remove the pot from heat and stir the syrup on the sides until the sugar granulates.

  4. Sift the batch through a flour sieve to remove loose sugar.

  5. Keep the nuts warm with a flannel cloth.

Build the coating and finish

  1. Take the sifted sugar, add ½ pint of water and enough sugar to make 1 lb total.

  2. Cook this mixture to a soft ball stage.

  3. Remove from heat, add the almonds, and stir until the sugar granulates again.

  4. Retain the remaining sugar and add more to make a pound.

  5. Cook with water to dissolve to a soft ball stage.

  6. Remove from heat, add a little red color and ½ oz of dissolved chocolate.

  7. Stir through the nuts until the sugar granulates.

  8. Sift again to remove loose sugar.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 crunchy syrup coating that granulates around each almond.
Almonds
Provide the nut core that the sugar coating sets around.
Chocolate
Adds flavor and color to the dissolved coating.

The step that matters

Stirring the syrup until the sugar granulates. Sugar syrup turns from clear to opaque, sandy crystals only when agitated at the right temperature. Stirring too early or too little can leave a glassy or lumpy coating, while stirring too long can make it dry and chalky.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Hazelnutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate. 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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