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Dessert

Burnt Almonds

A sweet treat made by caramelizing almonds with sugar and water, then adding cochineal for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Burnt Almonds

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 ↓

Burnt Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almonds

  1. Combine almonds, sugar, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Heat over a low flame until the almonds crack.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until completely dry.

  4. Sift off excess sugar using a wire sieve.

Coat and store

  1. Return the sugar to the pan with a little water and bring to a boil.

  2. Add cochineal to the sugar for coloring.

  3. Stir in the almonds and cook until dry.

  4. Store in a glass container for up to a year.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + 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

Almonds
Form the crunchy nut centre that the sugar coating surrounds.
Sugar
Melts and recrystallises into a crisp, sweet, opaque coating around the almonds.
Cochineal
Provides the red colour of the coating.

The step that matters

Stir until completely dry. If the sugar is not fully dried, it stays sticky or clumps instead of forming a crisp, separate coating on each almond. Stirring keeps the sugar moving so it crystallises evenly across the nuts.

“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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