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Orgeat Syrup

A syrup made from sweet and bitter almonds, water, rose water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Orgeat Syrup

Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Orgeat Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond milk

  1. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds together.

  2. Mix the almonds with 1 quart of water and strain the mixture.

  3. Add ⅓ cup of rose-water to the strained mixture.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 2 quarts of sugar until very thick.

  2. Combine the drained almond mixture with the syrup and boil until thick.

Bottle and store

  1. While warm, pour the syrup into bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles and tie bladders over them the next day.

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.

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.

  1. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Rose + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 nutty body and flavor of the syrup.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper almond aroma that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and thickens it as it boils down.
Rose-water
Adds a floral aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, so the syrup thickens and keeps better. Boiling it too little leaves it thin and prone to spoiling, while overboiling makes it stiff as it cools.

“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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