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Dessert

Almond Candy

A sweet almond confection made by caramelizing sugar with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a skillet well.

Make the candy

  1. Add the sugar first, then the sliced almonds.

  2. Stir slowly with a well-buttered spoon as the sugar begins to dissolve.

  3. Continue stirring until the mixture turns light brown.

  4. Pour onto a buttered platter and spread with a spoon.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + sugartop 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
Melts and caramelizes to form the sweet, brittle binding for the candy.
Sliced almonds
Provide the nutty crunch and texture that stays in the set candy.

The step that matters

Continue stirring until the mixture turns light brown. Sugar darkens quickly once it melts, so stirring keeps it even and stops hot spots from burning before the color is right.

“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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