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Dessert

Almond Cream

A chilled or hot almond custard made with blanched almonds, cream, lemon juice, and sugar, finished with a glazed egg white topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond cream

  1. Pound 4 oz. of sweet almonds and a few bitter almonds with 1 teaspoon of water to prevent oiling.

  2. Combine the almond paste with 1 quart of cream and the juice of 3 lemons. Sweeten to taste.

  3. Whisk the mixture until frothy.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve into glasses.

Make the custard

  1. Pound 1½ oz. of sweet almonds with 1 oz. each of candied citron and lemon peel.

  2. Rub 2 tablespoons of flour into 1 quart of milk.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks. Sweeten with sugar.

  4. Mix in the almond and peel mixture.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve 2 or 3 times.

  6. Heat the mixture until it almost boils.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour it into a serving dish.

  2. Glaze with egg whites and sugar.

  3. Place in the oven to dry the glaze.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Sweet almonds
Form the base paste that gives the cream its nutty almond flavour and body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, thick texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm milk mixture into a smooth, rich custard.
Flour
Helps stabilise the milk so it thickens smoothly without curdling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens and brightens the almond flavour.
Egg whites
Form a glaze that dries to a pale, set surface in the oven.

The step that matters

Heating the custard until it almost boils. Egg yolks thicken as they warm but can scramble or curdle if the mixture overheats. Stopping just short of boiling lets the custard thicken smoothly. The flour in the milk also helps protect it from curdling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, sugar, flour, milk, 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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