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Dessert

Grilled Almonds

A sweet treat made by caramelizing almonds in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grilled Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dry the almonds thoroughly.

  2. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.

  3. Cook until it forms long threads when dripped from a spoon.

Make the candied almonds

  1. Add the almonds to the syrup and stir occasionally.

  2. Once the almonds turn a pale yellow-brown, remove from heat immediately to preserve flavor.

  3. Stir until the syrup crystallizes around the nuts.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the crunchy base that the sugar syrup coats and sets around.
Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup, then crystallizes around the nuts and gives sweetness.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be cooked into a syrup.

The step that matters

Removing the almonds from heat at pale yellow-brown. Sugar keeps darkening after it reaches the target colour, so removing it promptly prevents bitterness. The syrup also stays at a stage where it coats and crystallizes around the nuts rather than hardening or burning.

“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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