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Orgeat Paste

A sweet almond paste made from blanched almonds, sugar, and syrup, used as a base for cocktails.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Orgeat Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond paste

  1. Pound the blanched almonds with a little water to prevent them from turning to oil.

  2. Add half the weight of the almonds in pounded sugar and mix into a paste.

Prepare the liquid

  1. Mix a piece of the paste the size of an egg in a pint of spring water.

  2. Strain the mixture through a napkin.

Combine and finish

  1. Boil a quart of common syrup until it reaches the blow stage.

  2. Mix the almonds with the syrup over heat, stirring constantly until it forms a stiff paste.

  3. Once cool, store in pots for later use.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Provide the main body, richness and nutty flavor of the syrup.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the almonds form a smooth, stable paste.
Common syrup
Supplies sweetness and liquid, and thickens as it is cooked with the almonds.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup to the blow stage. Sugar syrup thickens as its water evaporates and its sugar concentration rises. Stopping short leaves the syrup thin and watery, while going too far makes it stiff and hard to work with.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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