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Dessert

Almond Cream

A chilled or warm almond custard made with blanched almonds, cream, lemon juice, sugar, candied peel, flour, milk, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the almond cream

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

  2. Combine the almond paste with 1 quart of cream and the juice of 3 lemons.

  3. Sweeten to taste with pounded loaf sugar and whisk until frothy.

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

Make the alternative version

  1. For a different version, pound 4 oz. of sweet almonds with 1 oz. each of candied citron and lemon peel.

  2. Rub 2 tablespoons of flour into 1 quart of milk and add the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Mix in the almond paste and candied peel, then strain the mixture 2 or 3 times.

  4. Heat the mixture until it almost boils, then pour it into a serving dish.

Glaze and serve

  1. Glaze with the egg whites and sugar, then dry in the oven at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Serve hot or 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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provide the main almond flavour and the body of the paste.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it holds its body when heated.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the custard-like mixture as it heats.
Egg whites
Form a glaze that dries to a light, set surface in the oven.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until it almost boils. Egg yolks and flour thicken the mixture as it heats, but boiling can curdle the yolks and leave a grainy texture, so heat gently and stop just short of boiling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, sugar, flour, milk, egg. 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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