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Dessert

Irish Rock

A sweet almond confection made with butter, powdered sugar, sweet and bitter almonds, brandy, and decorated with almond meats and green fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Irish Rock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Wash the salt from the butter and beat it with the powdered sugar until smooth.

  2. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds, then pound them in a mortar, reserving some sweet almonds for decoration.

  3. Add the pounded almonds and brandy to the butter and sugar mixture, and pound until smooth and white.

Shape and serve

  1. Once firm, mold the mixture into a large egg-like shape and stick it full of almond meats.

  2. Place the shaped dessert on a glass dish and decorate with green sweetmeats and a sprig of myrtle or other green fruits.

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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

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

  5. Almond + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, firm body to the paste.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the paste and blends smoothly into the butter for a fine texture.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and bulk of the paste.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated almond aroma to the paste.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps the paste become smooth and workable.

The step that matters

Pounding the paste until smooth and white. Thorough pounding breaks the almonds down finely so the paste is smooth rather than grainy. Blending the butter and sugar fully first keeps the mixture even, so the shaped dessert holds together and sets firmly.

“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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