Skip to main content
Dessert

Rocks, Almond

A confection of sweet almonds, sugar, and egg whites baked into small almond rock pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Rocks, Almond

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 paste

  1. Beat the whole sweet almonds and loaf sugar together in a mortar.

  2. Pass the mixture through a flour sieve.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until very frothy in a medium-sized pan.

  4. Stir in enough of the almond-sugar mixture to form a moderately stiff paste.

  5. Add the sliced almonds to the paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Form small heaps with your fingers, keeping the heaps loose on top.

  2. Cover baking tins with wafer paper.

  3. Place the heaps about 1.5 inches apart.

  4. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C), leaving the oven door open most of the time, until they are a nice pale brown.

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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the rock.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps bind it into a paste.
Egg whites
Whisked to a froth, they lighten the paste and help it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Keeping the oven cool and the door open. A cool oven with the door open dries the heaps slowly, so they set and colour pale brown rather than browning or spreading too quickly. Too much heat would scorch the sugar before the centres dry.

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.

More almond rock recipes

Candy 3 See all 6 →

You might also like

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