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Almonds Blown Royal

A baked almond confection coated in sugar and egg, colored with carmine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Almonds Blown Royal

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Place the almonds in the oven until lightly colored.

Make the coating

  1. While cooling, mix sugar and egg for 10 minutes.

  2. Add a little carmine to achieve a rose color.

  3. Dip the almonds into the mixture, ensuring they are just covered.

Bake

  1. Lay them in pairs on a sheet of strong paper, leaving ¾ inch between each pair.

  2. Bake in a cool oven until set.

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).

  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

Small thick almonds
Form the crisp, nutty base that the sugar coating is applied over.
Sugar
Forms a sweet, glossy coating that dries and sets as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the sugar into a coating that puffs and sets when baked.
Carmine
Adds the rose color to the coating.

The step that matters

Dipping the almonds. Only a thin, even coat should cling to each almond. Too much mixture makes the coating heavy and slow to set, and it may spread on the paper during baking.

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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