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Almond Paste

A sweet almond paste made with milk, egg yolks, blanched and toasted almonds, sweetened to taste and baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,800 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat 6 pints of milk in a saucepan and sweeten to taste.

  2. Beat 6 egg yolks with a little milk and add the mixture to the saucepan.

  3. Add 4 ounces of blanched and pounded almonds.

  4. Stir constantly until thickened, then add 4 ounces of toasted and pounded almonds.

  5. Let the mixture boil three times.

Set and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into plates and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  2. The next day, place the plates in the oven until light brown.

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. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a soft, custard-like paste.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat and bind it into a smooth, set texture.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main almond body and flavour, giving the paste its texture.
Toasted almonds
Add a deeper, nuttier aroma and flavour to the paste.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the surface and helps it take on colour in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until thickened. Egg yolks can scramble or curdle if the mixture overheats or sits still, so constant stirring keeps the heat even and the custard smooth.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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