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
Make the sugar syrup
Combine 4 pounds of sugar and 1 quart of water in a pot.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Stir in 2 pounds of unblanched almonds dusted with sugar until the nuts begin to crack.
Remove the pot from heat.
Stir the syrup on the side of the pan until it granulates, about a few minutes.
Pour the mixture into a sieve to shake off loose sugar.
Cover the nuts with a flannel cloth to keep warm.
Build the sugar coating
In a separate pot, combine the sugar sifted from the nuts with enough water to dissolve and cook to a soft ball stage.
Remove the pot from heat.
Add the nuts and stir until the sugar granulates again, allowing most sugar to adhere to the nuts.
Retain the remaining sugar, add enough to make 4 pounds, and cook with water to a soft ball stage.
Remove the pot from heat.
Add red food coloring and 2 ounces of heated chocolate and stir until combined.
Add the nuts again and stir until the sugar granulates.
Pour the mixture into a sieve to shake off loose sugar.
Glaze and dry
Dissolve a small amount of gum arabic in warm water.
Add the gum arabic mixture to the remaining sugar and heat until dissolved.
Coat the nuts with the gum arabic mixture.
Spread the coated nuts in a layer on pans and let dry in a warm place.
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.
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Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,733 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 crystalline coating that turns granular as it cools and stirs.
- Almonds
- Provide the nut centre that the sugar coating binds and crunches around.
- Chocolate
- Adds flavour and colour depth to the sugar coating.
- Gum arabic
- Acts as a binder that helps the sugar glaze adhere to the nuts and dry smooth.
The step that matters
Stirring the syrup until it granulates. Sugar syrup held at the right temperature and stirred off the heat turns opaque and grainy by crystallising. Stirring too early or too late changes how much sugar sticks to the nuts.
Swap the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, chocolate):
- Hazelnutfits about as well
- Almondthe original
- Peanutfits about as well
- 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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