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Dessert

Artichokes and Almonds

A layered pastry of cream, almonds, artichoke, citron, and candied orange baked in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Artichokes and 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.

Prepare the cream

  1. Blanch the almonds and finely beat them with orange-flower or rose water.

  2. Boil the cream with cinnamon and mace, then sweeten it with sugar.

  3. Mix the cream with the almonds and strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Let the cream cool, then thicken it with the egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a deep dish with pastry at the bottom.

  2. Layer shredded artichoke bottoms in the dish and drizzle them with melted butter.

  3. Add layers of shredded citron and candied orange until the dish is nearly full.

  4. Pour the cream mixture over the layers.

  5. Bake without a lid at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  6. Grate sugar over the top and serve hot.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + artichoketop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + artichoketop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Finely beaten almonds give the filling body and a rich, nutty flavour.
Cream
Provides richness and moisture, and sets with the egg yolks into a custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cooled cream as they set, giving the filling its structure.
Artichoke bottoms
Form the tender, mild-flavoured body of the filling layers.
Citron and candied orange
Add sweet, aromatic citrus notes that contrast with the rich cream.

The step that matters

Thicken the cooled cream with the egg yolks. If the cream is too hot when the yolks are added, the eggs can scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Letting it cool first keeps the custard silky and evenly set.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, orange, cream, cinnamon, sugar, egg, artichoke):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, orange, cream, cinnamon, sugar, egg, artichoke. 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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