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Almond Conserve, Burnt

A sweet preserve made by browning almonds and mixing them with boiled sugar.

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 until browned.

Make the conserve

  1. Remove from the oven and add to 2 pounds of sugar boiled to a soft ball 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
Provide the main nutty flavour, and browning in the oven adds a toasted, caramel-like aroma.
Sugar
Forms the sweet, set mass of the conserve when boiled to a soft ball stage.

The step that matters

Browning the almonds in the oven. Almonds that are browned evenly gain a deeper, toasted flavour, while unevenly or over-browned strips can taste bitter. Watching them closely in the 400°F oven until they are golden helps ensure a good flavour throughout the batch.

“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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