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Dessert

Nut Cream

Nut Cream is a spread made by grinding pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, and a Brazil nut, then adding lemon juice to achieve a creamy consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and brazil nut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Nut Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grind the pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, and Brazil nut until fine.

  2. Add enough lemon juice to create a creamy consistency.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 4 hours or overnight before using.

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 + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Pine + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Walnut + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pine + walnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together311 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pine + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together176 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

Pine nuts
Provide the fat that gives the cream its rich, smooth body.
Almonds
Add fat and mild sweetness, contributing to the cream's body and flavor.
Walnuts
Add fat and a slightly bitter, earthy note to the cream.
Brazil nut
Adds richness and fat, thickening the cream as it is ground.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps thicken the nut mixture into a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand before using. Standing lets the finely ground nuts absorb the liquid and fully hydrate, so the cream thickens and its flavors blend. Using it too early can leave it thin and gritty.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pine, nuts, almond, walnut, brazil nut):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pine, nuts, almond, walnut, brazil nut. 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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