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Sugared Almonds

Almonds are boiled in a sugar syrup and dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond 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 ↓

Sugared Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil together sugar and water to make a syrup.

Cook the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds and add them to the syrup.

  2. Boil the almonds for a few minutes.

  3. Remove and drain the almonds.

Coat and dry

  1. Boil the syrup until thick.

  2. Return the almonds to the syrup and coat them for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Dry the almonds thoroughly and keep them in a warm place.

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. Sugar + almondtop 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

Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup, which thickens and hardens around the almonds to form a sweet, crisp coating.
Sweet almonds
Form the centre of each sweet, providing a crunchy texture under the sugar coating.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick, then coat the almonds briefly. As syrup boils, water evaporates and the sugar concentration rises. Syrup that is too thin leaves a sticky, wet coating, while overcooked syrup can turn grainy or crystallise. Coating for only a short time keeps the layer even and thin.

“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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