Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Almond Fraze
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the almond mixture
Steep the blanched almonds in cream and eggs.
Remove the almonds and pound them finely in a mortar.
Mix the pounded almonds back into the cream and eggs.
Cook and serve
Add sugar and grated white bread, stirring well.
Heat fresh butter in a pan, then pour in the batter.
Stir the batter in the pan until it thickens.
Transfer to a dish and sprinkle sugar on top.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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 nutty flavour and a fine, pounded body to the cake.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture to the batter.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the batter and help it thicken and set when heated.
- Egg whites
- Add structure and lightness as the batter sets.
- Grated white bread
- Soaks up liquid and gives the batter body so it holds together.
The step that matters
Stir the batter in the pan until it thickens. Eggs set when heated, so stirring keeps the batter moving and prevents it from scorching or turning lumpy on the base of the pan.
Swap the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, sugar, bread, butter):
- Almondthe original
- Pecansfits about as well
- Chestnutfits less well
- Filbertfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, bread, butter. 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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