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Dessert

Cream Almonds

A confection of almonds coated in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Cream Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond sugar

  1. Dissolve 2 to 3 pounds of sugar in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Add 2 pounds of selected almonds and cook until it reaches a soft crack stage.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until the almonds are granulated.

  4. Sift the almonds through a coarse sieve to remove loose sugar.

Make the coating syrup

  1. In another pan, cook 8 pounds of sugar with a pinch of cream of tartar to a soft ball stage.

  2. Keep the syrup warm while working with the almonds.

Coat and dry the almonds

  1. Using a ladle, pour a little of the hot syrup over the almonds and stir with a thin-bladed wooden paddle until dry.

  2. Repeat pouring syrup over the almonds until it is mostly used.

  3. Add a little cold water to the remaining syrup, wet the almonds with it, and place them in a wooden tray to dry.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Almond + creamtop 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

Sugar
Forms the syrup that crystallizes around the almonds to create the creamy coating.
Almonds
Act as the core that the granulated sugar coating clings to.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps prevent the syrup from crystallizing too early and keeps the coating smooth.

The step that matters

Stirring the almonds with syrup until dry. Adding syrup in small amounts and stirring steadily lets sugar recrystallize evenly around each almond. Pouring too much at once can leave wet, clumped or sticky almonds.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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