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Dessert

Turkish Paste

A confection made from sugar, glucose, almonds, egg whites, and flavoring.

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

Turkish Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in water and add the glucose.

  2. Boil until it forms a ball in water.

Beat and set

  1. Beat the mixture until creamy.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and beat again.

  3. When it becomes too hard to beat, add the nuts and flavoring.

  4. Pour into a pan lined with buttered paper.

  5. Let it stand overnight, then remove from the pan.

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. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 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

Granulated sugar
Forms the sweet bulk of the paste and, once boiled, sets it firm.
Glucose
Inhibits crystallisation, keeping the paste smooth and tender rather than grainy.
Almonds
Add body, texture and nutty flavour to the paste.
Egg whites
Beaten in, they add air and lightness, giving the paste a creamy, aerated texture.

The step that matters

Boiling to the ball stage. Boil the syrup until it forms a firm ball in cold water. Undercooking leaves it soft and sticky, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle, so the final set depends on this point.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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