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 ↓
Almond Hard-bake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
Dissolve the sugar in water and boil until brittle.
Set the almonds
Prepare a baking sheet by buttering it.
Place the flat side of the almonds down on the buttered sheet.
Pour the candy over the almonds.
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.
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sugar
- Forms the hard, glassy structure of the candy as water boils off and it cools.
- Blanched almonds
- Add crunch and nutty flavor to the set candy.
The step that matters
Boil until brittle. As water boils off, the sugar syrup becomes more concentrated. Cooking it long enough to reach the hard-crack stage makes the candy snap when cool. Stopping early leaves it sticky or chewy.
“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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