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Dessert

Burnt Almonds

A sweet treat made by boiling almonds with sugar and water until the almonds crack, then drying and sieving the sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Burnt Almonds

Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Burnt Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sugar coating

  1. Combine almonds, sugar, and water in a stewpan.

  2. Place over a clear coal fire and boil until the almonds crack.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until completely dry.

Finish

  1. Transfer to a wire sieve and sift off all the sugar.

  2. Return to the pan with a little water and continue as desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Form the crunchy body that the sugar coating is built around.
Loaf sugar
Dissolves in water, then crystallises on the almonds as a crisp, sweet coating.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can boil down and coat the almonds evenly.

The step that matters

Stirring until completely dry. Sugar syrup recrystallises as it loses water. Stirring keeps the crystals fine and even, giving a sandy, crisp coating instead of sticky clumps or a dull, uneven layer.

“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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