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Dessert

Almond Icing

Almond icing is a sweet paste made from ground almonds, egg yolks, rose water, bitter almond flavoring, and icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Grind the almonds using a meat chopper or nut grinder until they form a paste.

  2. In a bowl, combine the almond paste, egg yolks, rose water, and bitter almond flavoring.

  3. Gradually add the icing sugar until the mixture is as stiff as dough; you may need more sugar.

Shape and apply

  1. Dust a pastry board with icing sugar, then place the mixture on it and roll or pat it out to your desired thickness.

  2. Cut the icing into shapes as needed.

  3. You can shape the icing with your hands to fit the cake.

  4. Moisten the cake with cold water, press the icing onto it, and let it stand for 24 hours before covering with additional icing.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Rose + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Ground into a paste that forms the body and flavor of the icing.
Egg yolks
Bind the almond paste and add richness and moisture to the mixture.
Icing sugar
Stiffens the mixture into a dough-like texture that can be rolled and shaped.
Bitter almond flavoring
Adds a strong almond aroma and flavor to the icing.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the icing sugar. Sugar must be added slowly so the mixture firms into a workable dough. Adding it all at once can make it too stiff to roll or leave pockets of dry sugar, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape.

“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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