Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Burnt Almond Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the almonds
Blanch the almonds, then shred and bake them until brown.
Combine and serve
Combine the baked almonds with the custard, cream, Kirsch, and loaf sugar.
Mix well and serve chilled.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Custard
- Provides the creamy base and body of the dessert.
- Cream
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.
- Almonds
- Supply nutty flavor, and baking them browns them for a toasted aroma and crunch.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and custard.
- Kirsch
- Adds a fruity, cherry-like aroma and flavor.
The step that matters
Baking the almonds until brown. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction and caramelization of sugars and proteins in the almonds. The window between nutty brown and bitter burnt is narrow, and once they burn the bitterness carries into the whole cream.
Swap the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar):
- Almondthe original
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Hazelnutfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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