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Dessert

Almond and Chocolate Icing

A sweet icing made from icing sugar, ground almonds, egg, lemon juice, sherry, almond essence, and optional vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond and Chocolate Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Mix icing sugar and ground almonds in a bowl.

  2. Add beaten egg, lemon juice, sherry, almond essence, and vanilla if desired.

  3. Work the mixture lightly on a board dusted with fine sugar for a few minutes.

  4. If the icing is too soft, add more sugar gradually instead of flour.

Old-fashioned version

  1. For an old-fashioned version, mix almonds and sugar in a copper saucepan over low heat, stirring until hot and adding a few drops of water occasionally.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Icing sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk so the almond paste holds its shape.
Ground almonds
Supply the main body, nutty flavour and firm texture of the icing.
Egg
Binds the almonds and sugar into a cohesive, workable paste.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and liquids. Too much liquid makes the paste soft and sticky, and the icing then needs more sugar to firm up. Add the beaten egg and flavourings gradually and stop once the mixture comes together, so it can be worked and rolled smoothly.

“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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