Name: Almond Pyramids
Ingredients: 2 oz. butter; 2 oz. ground almonds; ⅓ cup brandy; 2 teaspoons saccharine; 1 teaspoon water

Why it works: Butter and almond 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 Pyramids

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond mixture

Dissolve the saccharine in the water.
Beat the butter until creamy.
Stir in the ground almonds and brandy.
Add the dissolved saccharine and mix well.

Serve

Serve cold, piled on neatly cut squares of gluten bread and alongside gluten rusks.

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.

Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,969 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter: Provides fat and richness, giving the mixture a creamy, spreadable body.
Ground almonds: Adds bulk and nutty flavour, giving the mixture its solid texture.
Brandy: Adds aroma and flavour, and moistens the almond mixture.

“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.