Name: Almond Paste
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins, stoned; 2 pounds bitter almonds, blanched; ½ teaspoon camphor; ⅓ cup brandy; ⅓ cup honey; 2 beaten eggs; a little fine sand, sifted

Why it works: Camphor and brandy work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 31 recipes mention both. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Pound and mix the raisins and blanched almonds thoroughly.
Add the camphor, brandy, honey, and beaten eggs to the mixture.
Incorporate the sifted fine sand into the mixture.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Camphor + brandytop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together31 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Raisin + almondtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,781 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Raisin + brandytop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Almond + honeytop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,069 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Brandy + honeytop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together169 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds: Form the bulk of the paste, giving it body and a nutty, marzipan-like texture.
Raisins: Add sweetness and moisture, helping bind the pounded mixture together.
Beaten eggs: Bind the mixture and add moisture and structure as the paste comes together.
Honey: Adds sweetness and helps keep the paste moist and pliable.

Flavor stand-ins for the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, camphor, brandy, honey, egg):

Figbetter flavor fit
Grapebetter flavor fit
Vanillabetter flavor fit
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, camphor, brandy, honey, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.