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Dessert

Almond Sauce

A sauce made from ground almonds, milk, cane sugar, flour, egg yolks, and almond essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond milk

  1. In a saucepan, combine ground almonds and ½ cup of milk, then bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, then strain the milk, leaving the almonds dry.

Thicken the sauce

  1. Pour the almond milk back into the saucepan. Mix flour with the remaining cold milk and add to the saucepan along with the sugar.

  2. Stir constantly until boiling, then let it boil for 5 minutes.

Finish with egg yolks

  1. Beat the egg yolks and mix a little of the sauce with them before adding to the saucepan. Do not boil after adding the eggs.

  2. If using, add the essence of almonds or finely chopped bitter almonds.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Ground almonds
Provides the main almond flavour and body in the milk.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when gently heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the flavour.

The step that matters

Do not boil after adding the eggs. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but boiling them makes the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy. Tempering the yolks with a little hot sauce first helps prevent this.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, flour, egg):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Milletfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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