Name: Peanut and Almond Nutora
Ingredients: 1 cup almond butter; 2 cups raw peanut butter; Salt to taste; 1½ cups water (or enough to achieve a stiff consistency); 1½ cups corn-starch (optional, for a less rich version)

Why it works: Almond and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry acetylpyrazine, which smells roast. The science ↓

Peanut and Almond Nutora

Ingredients

1 cup almond butter
2 cups raw peanut butter
Salt to taste
1½ cups water (or enough to achieve a stiff consistency)
1½ cups corn-starch (optional, for a less rich version)

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine almond butter, peanut butter, and salt.
Add water gradually until the mixture is stiff but can be beaten.

Beat and cook

Beat the mixture with an egg beater for five minutes or longer.
Transfer the mixture into cans and cook for three hours or longer.

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.

Almond + peanuttop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together305 recipes

Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).
Peanut + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together346 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Almond + corntop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together485 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 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

Almond butter: Adds nut flavour and richness, giving the mixture its body and fat.
Peanut butter: Provides the main nut flavour and fat, making the mixture rich and spreadable when set.
Water: Loosens the nut butters so they can be beaten to a stiff, workable consistency.

The step that matters

Beat until stiff. Beating incorporates air and evens out the mixture, and water must be added gradually so the texture firms without becoming runny. Under-beating leaves the mixture dense and uneven, which affects how it sets during cooking.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, butter, corn):

Pistachiofits better
Cashew nutfits better
Beansfits about as well
Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, corn. 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.

Corn Cake90 recipes

Corn Starch Cake89 recipes

Peanut Candy82 recipes

Almond Sponge Cake26 recipes

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Peanut and Almond Nutora