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Dessert

Almond Cream

A chilled almond cream made by blending blanched almonds with water, cream, lemon juice, and sugar, then whisking and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds with the water to prevent oiling.

  2. Combine the almond paste with the cream and lemon juice.

  3. Sweeten to taste and whisk until frothy.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve into glasses, topping with the froth.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 bulk of the paste, giving body and a mild, nutty almond flavour.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated, aromatic almond flavour in small amounts.
Cream
Provides richness, fat and a smooth, creamy body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and cuts the richness of the cream.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Pound the almonds with the water. Almonds are rich in oil, and grinding them dry can release that oil and make the paste greasy. Adding a little water keeps the oil dispersed, so the paste stays smooth and blends evenly into the cream.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, 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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