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Dessert

Egg Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from sugar, water, almonds, egg yolks, and vanilla or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Egg Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in water over medium heat to make a thick syrup, adding the pounded almonds while clarifying.

Add the yolks and flavor

  1. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then stir in the well-beaten egg yolks until fully blended.

  2. Flavor with vanilla or wine.

Finish cooking

  1. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into a thick syrup that provides sweetness and body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture and add richness as they gently set with heat.
Pounded almonds
Add nutty flavor and fat, giving the mixture a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the mixture smooth and from burning on the base of the pan.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Macadamia nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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