Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Almonds, or Filberts

Chocolate‑coated almonds made with melted chocolate and a sugar‑milk candy coating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chocolate Almonds, or Filberts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds and set aside.

  2. Melt the chocolate in a bowl.

  3. Coat the almonds with the melted chocolate and place them on buttered paper to cool.

Make the sugar coating

  1. Combine the sugar with enough milk or thin cream to absorb.

  2. Dissolve the mixture over low heat.

  3. Boil slowly until it forms a soft candy in cold water.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir until it begins to cool.

  6. Add your chosen flavoring.

  7. Beat the mixture until it creams and is cool enough to handle.

  8. Form into balls or shapes and let dry.

Finish with chocolate

  1. Once dry, dip the shapes in melted chocolate and place on buttered paper to cool.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sweet almonds
Form the core of each piece, providing crunch and bulk under the coating.
Chocolate
Forms the outer coating that adds richness and a smooth, snappy shell.
White sugar
Cooks into a soft candy mixture that holds the shapes together and sweetens them.
Milk or thin cream
Dissolves the sugar and adds creaminess to the candy mixture.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until it forms a soft candy in cold water. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set firm but soft. Boiling too fast or too long can make it grainy or hard, while stopping too early leaves it too runny to hold its shape.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, milk, vanilla. 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes