Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Almond Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
In a brass or copper pan, combine 4 lbs. of moist sugar and 1 pint of water.
Boil for 8 minutes, then remove from heat.
Stir in 2 lbs. of ground sweet almonds until thick.
Finish
Pour the mixture over the cake and allow it to dry slowly.
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.
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Moist sugar
- Dissolves into the water and, once boiled and cooled, sets the icing into a sweet, firm coating.
- Ground sweet almonds
- Thicken the syrup and add body, flavour and a fine texture to the icing.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar syrup for 8 minutes. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and concentrates the syrup. Too short a boil leaves the icing thin and slow to set, while overcooking makes it hard and grainy as it cools.
“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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