Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
How to Make Almond Paste
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the paste
Grind the almonds with the sugar until smooth.
If the paste is hard, add a little syrup.
Make the sugar mixture and combine
In a separate pan, boil the mold A sugar with glucose at 300°F (150°C).
Pour the sugar mixture little by little onto the almond paste while mixing with a wooden spatula.
Work the mixture vigorously to bleach it, then spread it out on a marble slab to cool.
Refine and flavor
Run the cooled paste through a machine, gradually tightening it to achieve a fine texture without making it oily.
Flavor the almond paste with distilled spirits, essences, or liquors as desired.
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 + sugartop 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
- Newly blanched almonds
- Form the main body and flavor of the paste.
- Extra fine granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps grind the almonds into a smooth paste.
- Mold a sugar
- Provides sweetness and body once boiled into the paste.
- Glucose
- Keeps the paste moist and smooth by slowing sugar crystallization.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar and glucose to 300°F (150°C). Temperature controls how much water remains in the sugar syrup. Too low leaves the paste soft and sticky, while too high makes it hard once cooled.
“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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