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Almond Toffee

A sweet confection of almonds coated in a browned sugar and butter syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Toffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a shallow tin or dish.

  2. Blanch the almonds, divide them in halves, and lay them flat side down in the dish.

Make the toffee

  1. In a saucepan, boil the sugar, butter, water, and the rind of the lemon.

  2. Once the mixture is sufficiently done, let it stand until the boiling ceases.

  3. Stir in the juice of the lemon.

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 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

Brown sugar
Sets into the brittle, sweet body of the toffee as the syrup cooks down.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and a tender bite in the toffee.
Almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavour against the glossy toffee.
Lemon
Its rind adds aroma during boiling, and its juice adds a bright acidity at the end.

The step that matters

Judging when the mixture is sufficiently done. The sugar concentration set by boiling decides whether the toffee turns out firm and brittle or soft and sticky. Cooking too little leaves it tacky, while cooking too long can scorch the sugar and give a bitter taste.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, almond. 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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