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Nut Creams

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Nut Creams

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the nuts of your choice: almonds, English walnuts, hickory nuts, or pecans.

  2. Mix equal parts of the chopped nuts and plain paste until well combined.

  3. Form the mixture into balls, bars, or a roll.

  4. Cover the roll with melted paste, adding color if desired.

  5. Roll the covered roll in granulated sugar.

  6. Allow to harden, then cut crosswise into pieces.

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 + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + pecanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

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

  4. Almond + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + nutstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Brazil nutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, walnut, pecans, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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