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Burnt Almond Cream

A frozen dessert made by caramelizing almonds and sugar, then blending with sweetened cream.

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

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Burnt Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond praline

  1. Stir the almonds and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar turns caramel brown.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then pound the almonds and sugar to a powder.

Make and freeze the ice cream

  1. Sweeten the cream to taste.

  2. Gradually add the almond mixture to the sweetened cream.

  3. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 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

Rich cream
Provides fat and body, giving the ice cream its smooth, rich texture.
Sugar
Caramelizes to add deep, toasted flavor and sweetness to the almonds.
Blanched almonds
Caramelized and ground into a praline that adds nutty, toasted flavor.

The step that matters

Caramelizing the sugar and almonds. Sugar darkens quickly once it nears caramel, so stirring over medium heat until it is evenly brown is needed to avoid a bitter, burnt taste. The flavor of the praline depends on this stage.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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