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Dessert

Almond Cream

A sweet, lemon‑flavored almond custard thickened with cream and milk, finished with a glazed egg white topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cold almond cream

  1. Pound 4 oz. of sweet almonds and a few bitter almonds with 1 teaspoon of water to prevent oiling.

  2. Combine the almond paste with 1 quart of cream and the juice of 3 lemons, sweetening to taste.

  3. Whisk the mixture until frothy.

  4. Strain through a sieve into glasses.

Make the baked almond custard

  1. For the second method, pound 1½ oz. of sweet almonds with 1 oz. each of candied citron and lemon peel.

  2. Rub 2 tablespoons of flour into 1 quart of whole milk.

  3. Add 5 beaten egg yolks, sweetening to taste.

  4. Mix in the almond and peel mixture.

  5. Strain through a sieve 2 or 3 times.

  6. Heat the mixture until almost boiling.

  7. Pour it into a serving dish.

  8. Glaze with beaten egg whites and sugar.

  9. Dry in a 300°F (150 °C) oven.

  10. Serve hot or cold.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 almond flavour and body of the cream when pounded finely.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the almond mixture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture and give it a rich, set custard texture.
Flour
Helps thicken the milk so the custard holds its body when heated.
Whole milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds moisture and softness.
Egg whites
Form a glaze that dries to a light, crisp surface on the custard.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until almost boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the custard gets too hot it can curdle or turn grainy. Heating gently to just below boiling lets it thicken smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, sugar, flour, milk, egg. 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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