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Dessert

Salted Almonds

A simple snack of almonds coated with butter or oil and salt, then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Salted Almonds

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Coat the almonds

  1. Dry the almonds thoroughly.

  2. In a bowl, stir in the melted butter or oil, coating each almond.

  3. Mix thoroughly with the salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Lay the almonds on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven, shaking and turning the pan occasionally.

  3. Remove when golden brown, discard loose salt, and enjoy.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Form the crunchy base, which toasts and turns nutty in the oven.
Coarse sea salt
Provides the salty seasoning that clings to the oiled surface of each almond.
Sweet butter or oil
Coats the almonds so the salt sticks and the surface browns and crisps evenly.

The step that matters

Remove when golden brown. Almonds keep darkening from residual heat after leaving the oven. Shaking and turning them during baking spreads the heat evenly, and pulling them at golden brown prevents scorching, which tastes bitter.

“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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