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Dessert

Blanched Almonds

Blanched almonds are almonds with skins removed, then coated in butter and lightly toasted.

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

Blanched Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Blanch and peel

  1. Pour boiling water over the shelled almonds and let them stand for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Peel off the skins and drop the almonds into cold water for a few minutes.

  3. Drain and dry the almonds.

Butter and brown

  1. Dredge the blanched almonds in melted butter.

  2. Place them in a pan, sprinkle with salt, and brown slightly in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shelled almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor; blanching removes the skins for a smooth, pale texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the salt and browning adhere to the almonds.

The step that matters

Browning slightly in the oven. Nuts brown through Maillard reactions between sugars and proteins, which speed up with heat. Because they keep darkening after leaving the oven, they should be removed while still pale gold.

“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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