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Dessert

Almond Icing

A sweet almond paste icing made with almonds, egg yolk, 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 icing

  1. Blanch the almonds and grind them using a nut grinder until they form a paste.

  2. Add the unbeaten yolk of egg, bitter almond flavoring, and gradually mix in the icing sugar until the mixture is as stiff as dough.

  3. Dredge a pastry board with icing sugar, then toss the mixture onto it and roll or pat it out to the desired thickness.

  4. Cut the icing into shapes as desired.

Apply to the cake

  1. 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

Shelled almonds
Provide the nutty base and bulk of the paste once blanched and ground.
Yolk of egg
Binds the ground almonds and sugar together into a cohesive dough.
Icing sugar
Sweetens and stiffens the mixture so it can be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Adding the icing sugar gradually. Icing sugar should be added slowly so the mixture reaches a stiff dough without becoming dry or crumbly. Adding it all at once can make the paste hard to bind and uneven in texture.

“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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