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Dessert

Almond Toffy

A sweet confection made from butter, sugar, and almonds, boiled until it cracks when dropped into cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Toffy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds, divide them, and dry them in a slow oven.

Make the toffee

  1. In a saucepan, boil the butter and sugar together for 20 minutes.

  2. Stir in the almonds and continue to boil until the toffee crackles when dropped into cold water or snaps between the teeth without sticking.

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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, and helps give the toffee a tender bite.
Sugar
Sweetens the toffee and, as it boils, caramelises and sets into a brittle structure.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and crunch to the finished toffee.

The step that matters

Boiling until the toffee is done. Sugar sets hard only at a high enough temperature. Stopping early leaves a sticky toffee that won't snap, while boiling too long scorches the sugar and makes it bitter. Testing in cold water shows when the sugar has reached the brittle stage.

“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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