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Dessert

Almond Cream

A sweetened almond custard thickened with cream and eggs, flavored with lemon peel and orange‑flower or rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Blanch and pound the almonds to a paste with rose water.

Make the cream

  1. Boil the cream with the lemon peel.

  2. Add the almond paste and beaten eggs to the cream.

  3. Stir over low heat until thick, but do not let it boil.

  4. Sweeten to taste, then stir in the orange-flower or rose water when nearly cold.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the body and nutty flavour of the cream once pounded into a paste.
Cream
Forms the rich base that thickens and gives the dish its smooth, fatty texture.
Eggs
Thicken the cream as they set gently over low heat, giving it structure.
Orange-flower or rose water
Adds a fragrant floral aroma that flavours the cream.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until thick, but do not let it boil. Egg proteins set and thicken the cream gently. If it boils, the eggs can curdle and turn grainy, so the cream stays over low heat and is stirred constantly.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, lemon, egg, orange, sugar):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, lemon, egg, orange, 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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