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Cream Almonds

Roasted almonds coated in a sugar syrup flavored with vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cream Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roast the almonds and set them aside.

Make the sugar syrup

  1. In a kettle, combine sugar and enough water to dissolve it, then cook until it reaches 238°F (114°C).

  2. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract.

Coat the almonds

  1. Pour the sugar mixture onto a hot slab with the almonds.

  2. While a helper pours the mixture onto the nuts, use two pail covers to stir the almonds continuously until they are coated to your liking.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Almonds
Form the main body of the confection that the sugar coating clings to.
Sugar
Cooks into a syrup that coats the nuts and gives them sweetness and a crisp coating.

The step that matters

Stirring the almonds while the syrup is poured. Sugar syrup cools and crystallizes quickly on a hot slab. Stirring continuously while the syrup is added spreads it evenly over the nuts before it hardens, preventing clumps and bare patches.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Macadamia nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla. 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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