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Dessert

Egg Marmalade

A sweet custard made from egg yolks, almonds, sugar syrup, and topped with cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon 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 ↓

Egg Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar with water to make a syrup.

Make the marmalade

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the pounded almonds until well combined.

  2. Stir the almond and egg mixture into the boiling syrup continuously.

  3. Place the mixture in a jug and set it in a saucepan of boiling water.

  4. Stir until the mixture thickens, then pour it into custard glasses.

  5. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top before serving.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they set with gentle heat, giving the marmalade a smooth, rich body.
Almonds
Add body and nutty flavour, and help bind the egg mixture into a smooth texture.
Loaf sugar
Forms the syrup base, adding sweetness and helping the mixture hold its texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the syrup. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly or sit still. Stirring continuously spreads the heat and keeps the yolks smooth as they thicken.

“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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