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Almond Paste

A sweet almond paste made with sugar, water, almonds, egg, almond essence, and saffron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 306 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a copper pan; dissolve over low heat.

  2. Once dissolved, bring to a boil until it reaches a small boil.

Make the paste

  1. Remove from heat and add ground almonds, almond essence, and saffron for color.

  2. Transfer to a slab and work in the whole egg until a soft paste forms.

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 + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + saffrontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together650 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Dissolves into the water to form a syrup that sets the paste and sweetens it.
Ground almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavor of the paste.
Egg
Binds the almonds and syrup together into a soft, cohesive paste.

The step that matters

Bringing the syrup to a boil. Boiling concentrates the sugar syrup; if it is under-boiled the paste stays too wet and soft, and if over-boiled it turns hard and crystalline once it cools. Stop at the small boil stated in the method.

Swap the saffron

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Saffronthe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, 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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