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Dessert

Grilled Almonds

Candied almonds made by blanching, coating with sugar, and baking until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Grilled Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Cut the blanched almonds lengthwise into five or six pieces.

  3. Oil a baking sheet.

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, heat the sugar until it begins to move quickly.

  2. Add the almonds and stir constantly until they form a mass.

Shape and finish

  1. Spread the almond mixture on the baking sheet and flatten the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle with cinnamon or confits.

  3. Cut into pieces while still warm.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 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).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Form the main body of the candy, providing crunch and a nutty flavor.
Sugar
Melts into a syrup that coats the almonds and hardens into a brittle candy shell.

The step that matters

Stirring the almonds into the melted sugar. Once the sugar begins to move quickly, it can darken and burn fast. Stirring constantly spreads heat evenly and coats the nuts before the syrup sets, so the mass holds together.

“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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