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Dessert

Almond Chocolate Drops

A confection of chocolate and almonds formed into drops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,733 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Chocolate Drops

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place a metal mortar in the hot oven until heated.

Make the chocolate paste

  1. Add the broken chocolate to the mortar and pound it to a paste.

  2. Mix in the finely-sifted sugar with the chocolate paste.

Coat and set the almonds

  1. Blanch, slice, and dry the almonds in a cool oven (300°F or 150°C).

  2. Roll each almond slice smoothly in the chocolate paste.

  3. Place the coated almond slices on sheets of writing paper until cold.

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. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 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

Cake chocolate
Melts into the paste that forms the smooth coating around each almond slice.
Finely-sifted sugar
Sweetens the chocolate and blends into the paste for a smooth texture.
Sweet almonds
Provide the crunchy, nutty centre that the chocolate paste coats.

The step that matters

Pounding the chocolate to a paste in the heated mortar. Warming the mortar softens the chocolate so it can be worked into a smooth, even paste. If it is too cold or pounded unevenly, the coating will be grainy and may not adhere evenly to the almond slices.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, sugar):

  1. Hazelnutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar. 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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