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Almond-paste Filling

A sweet almond paste filling made with almonds, powdered sugar, bitter almonds, egg white, and rose water.

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-paste Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Blanch the almonds and pound them to a paste in a mortar, adding a few drops of rose-water to prevent oiling.

  2. Mix the almond paste with an equal weight of powdered sugar.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the egg white.

Use the filling

  1. Allow it to dry slightly, then spread on thin layers of cake cut into neat shapes or use as filling for Archangel Cake.

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

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

  4. Sugar + rosetop 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body of the paste, giving a rich, nutty base for the filling.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dries the paste slightly, making it easier to shape and spread.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper, more intense almond aroma to the paste.
Egg white
Moistens the mixture so it binds together into a spreadable paste.

The step that matters

Adding the rose-water while pounding. Adding a few drops of rose-water while pounding the almonds helps prevent the paste from releasing its oil, which would make the filling greasy and loose.

“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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