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Dessert

Almond Creams

A sweet almond confection made by boiling sugar, water, and cream of tartar with vanilla, then adding almonds and shaping into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond 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 ↓

Almond Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine sugar, water, cream of tartar, and vanilla in a saucepan and boil until drops almost hold their shape in water.

  2. Add chopped almonds and pour the mixture into a bowl set in cold water.

  3. Stir steadily with a silver or wooden spoon until cool enough to handle.

Shape and cut

  1. Knead the mixture to a fine, even texture; if too hard, add a few drops of warm water; if too soft, boil again.

  2. Once molded, cut into squares or bars.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

Sugar
Forms the syrup that sets into the soft, sweet body of the creams.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep the sugar syrup smooth and prevents crystallization.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main body, flavor and chewy texture once mixed into the cooked syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to the right stage. The mixture must reach the point where drops nearly hold their shape in cold water. Too little cooking leaves the creams soft and sticky, while too much makes them hard. Stirring only after cooling helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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