Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Milk Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the almond milk
Boil the milk with sweet and bitter almonds and cinnamon until it simmers.
Stir in enough sugar to make it very sweet, then strain the mixture.
Assemble and serve
Toast the bread slices and lay them in the bottom of a tureen.
Pour a little hot milk over the bread and cover to let it soak.
Beat the egg yolks until light, then gradually add them to the hot milk, stirring constantly until it thickens.
Remove from heat immediately to prevent curdling, then pour over the soaked bread in the tureen.
For added flavor, cover the bread with slices of baked apple before pouring the milk mixture.
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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,514 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk into a smooth custard as they cook gently with the hot milk.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that carries the almond and cinnamon flavour and soaks the bread.
- Bread
- Absorbs the warm milk mixture, giving the dish a soft, pudding-like body.
- Sweet almonds
- Contribute nutty flavour and body to the infused milk.
The step that matters
Remove from heat immediately after thickening. Egg yolks set and curdle when overheated, so the custard must be taken off the heat as soon as it thickens to stay smooth.
Swap the apple
The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, almond, cinnamon, sugar, bread, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, almond, cinnamon, sugar, bread, 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.
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