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 Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the almonds
Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds, then soak them in cold water for 1–2 hours.
Drain and wipe the almonds, then pound them into a fine paste, adding cold water as needed to prevent oiling.
Make the paste
Mix in the sifted sugar thoroughly.
Transfer the mixture to a small preserving pan and stir over a gentle heat until it no longer sticks to your fingers.
Pour the paste into an earthen jar and let it cool before use.
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.
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Form the main body of the paste, providing bulk, richness and almond flavour.
- Bitter almonds
- Add a stronger, more pronounced almond aroma to the paste.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the paste and, once heated, helps it firm into a workable mass.
- Cold water
- Keeps the paste moist while pounding so the almond oils do not separate out.
The step that matters
Pounding with cold water. Almonds release oil as they are crushed, and friction from pounding warms them. Adding cold water as needed keeps the paste moist and stops the oil separating, which would make it greasy and grainy.
“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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