Why it works: Almond and sugar 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 ↓
Almond Bon-bons
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Blanch the almonds and dry them thoroughly.
Make the almond coating
Boil the sugar and water in a saucepan until it reaches a 'hairs' stage.
Add the almonds to the syrup and cook, stirring occasionally, until they turn a delicate golden brown.
As soon as the sugar begins to color, remove the pan from the heat.
Stir the almonds rapidly until the syrup turns back to sugar and clings irregularly to the nuts.
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.
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Forms the syrup that cooks down and recrystallizes into a sugary, irregular coating on the almonds.
- Blanched almonds
- Provide the crunchy nut centre that the syrup coats and browns around.
The step that matters
Removing the pan from the heat as the sugar begins to color. Sugar keeps darkening from residual heat even after it leaves the burner, so waiting longer can scorch the syrup and make the almonds bitter. Pulling it off at the first colour keeps the golden brown delicate.
“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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