Skip to main content
Dessert

Salted Almonds

A simple snack of almonds coated in butter and salt, then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Salted Almonds

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. Pour boiling water over the shelled almonds and let them sit for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the brown husk from the almonds to blanch them.

  3. Stir the blanched almonds into the melted butter.

  4. Let them stand, then add the salt.

Bake and drain

  1. Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

  2. Remove from the oven and place on soft, porous paper to absorb excess butter.

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

Almonds
Form the crunchy body of the snack and take on the butter, salt and browning.
Melted butter
Coats the almonds, carrying the salt and adding richness and flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the almonds, adding savoury flavour that contrasts with their sweetness.

The step that matters

Baking until golden brown. Almonds darken quickly once the sugars and proteins in their skins brown, so they can turn bitter if overbaked. Pull them when golden, since they keep crisping as they cool.

“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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes