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Orgeat

A sweet almond and cinnamon syrup made with milk, almonds, sugar, brandy, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Orgeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and pound the almonds.

Make the milk base

  1. Boil the milk with the stick of cinnamon and sweeten to taste.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Gradually pour the cooled milk into a mixture of blanched and beaten almonds and bitter almonds, adding a little water to prevent oiling.

  4. Boil the mixture together and stir until cool.

  5. Add the brandy.

  6. Stir in the water and milk.

  7. Strain through a cloth.

Make the syrup and finish

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a pint of water.

  2. Boil.

  3. Mix with the strained almond mixture.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and body of the syrup as they are pounded and steeped in liquid.
Milk
Carries the almond flavour and gives the syrup a creamy, smooth body.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve it once dissolved and boiled.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper, more intense almond aroma than sweet almonds alone.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic aroma and helps preserve the finished syrup.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the cooled milk into the almonds. Adding the liquid slowly, with a little water, keeps the emulsion from separating and releasing oil from the almonds, which would leave the syrup greasy and grainy.

“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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