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Dessert

Almond Sauce

A thickened almond milk sauce sweetened with sugar and almond meal, finished with beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Thicken the almond milk

  1. Bring the almond milk to a boil.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the white flour with a little cold water until smooth.

  3. Add the flour mixture to the boiling almond milk to thicken.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in the sugar and almond meal or chopped blanched almonds.

  2. Fold in the well-beaten egg white.

  3. Remove from the stove immediately.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Almond milk
Forms the liquid base that the sauce thickens and flavours.
White flour
Starch that swells in the hot liquid and thickens the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the nutty flavour.
Almond meal or chopped blanched almonds
Adds nutty aroma and body, giving the sauce some texture.
Egg white
Adds lightness and a little set structure when folded in gently.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Egg white proteins set when heated. Adding it to a very hot sauce can scramble it into lumps, so fold it in gently and remove the pan from the heat as instructed to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar, 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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