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Dessert

Almond Cream

A custard made from almonds, cream, sugar, eggs, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Pound the almonds to a paste with a little rose water.

  2. Boil the cream and add it to the almond paste.

  3. Sift in the sugar and gradually add the well-beaten eggs.

  4. Stir the mixture over the fire until thick.

Serve

  1. When fairly cool, pour into custard glasses.

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

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

  2. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Form the flavouring base and body of the custard once pounded into a paste.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps give it a smooth texture.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it structure.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over the fire until thick. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, but too much heat or stirring too little can curdle the eggs and leave lumps. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly until the custard coats a spoon.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg, rose. 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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