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Dessert

Almond Conserve, Burnt

A sweet preserve made from blanched almonds and sugar, browned and boiled into a caramelized mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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 ↓

Almond Conserve, Burnt

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and cut the almonds into small strips.

  2. Lay the strips on paper and place them in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. Remove them when they are browned.

Make the caramel and set

  1. Boil the sugar until it reaches the petit casse stage.

  2. Stir the mixture well until it begins to bubble.

  3. Pour the mixture into paper cases or molds.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Browning in the oven gives the almonds a toasted, nutty flavour that carries the dish.
Sugar
Boiled to the petit casse stage, it forms a hard, brittle sweet that sets the conserve.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar to the petit casse stage. Sugar must reach the right temperature to set firm and brittle as it cools. Undercooked sugar stays soft and sticky, while overcooked sugar turns bitter and dark.

“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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