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Dessert

Grilled Almonds

A sweet caramelized almond treat made by blanching almonds, boiling sugar syrup, and cooking until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grilled Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds by pouring hot water over them.

  2. Let them stand for a few minutes, then plunge them into cold water and dry thoroughly.

Caramelize the almonds

  1. Boil the sugar and water in a saucepan until it reaches the 'hairs' stage.

  2. Add the blanched almonds to the syrup and cook, stirring occasionally, until they turn a delicate brown.

  3. As soon as the sugar begins to color, remove the pan from the heat and stir the almonds rapidly until the syrup crystallizes and clings to the nuts.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Almonds
Form the crunchy nut base that the syrup coats and browns.
Granulated sugar
Dissolves, then cooks into a syrup that browns and crystallizes onto the nuts, adding sweetness.

The step that matters

Pulling the pan off the heat at first color. Sugar can go from pale to burnt within seconds, so removing the pan as soon as it begins to color stops further darkening. Rapid stirring then encourages the syrup to turn grainy and cling to the almonds.

“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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