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Dessert

Salted Almonds

Salted almonds are almonds coated with butter and sea salt, then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Salted Almonds

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Dry the almonds thoroughly and place them in a bowl.

Season

  1. Melt the butter and stir it into the almonds, coating each one. Mix in the coarse sea salt until evenly distributed.

Bake

  1. Spread the almonds on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the oven, shaking and turning the pan occasionally.

  3. Remove when golden brown, then discard any loose salt.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main crunchy body and nutty flavor that the coating and salt are built on.
Butter
Coats each almond with fat, helping the surface brown and carry the salt evenly.
Coarse sea salt
Adds a salty flavor that stands out against the roasted nuts.

The step that matters

Remove when golden brown. Almonds keep darkening from residual heat after leaving the oven, and over-browned nuts turn bitter. Pull them when they are golden and shake the pan occasionally during baking so they colour evenly.

“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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