Almond Paste
INGREDIENTS. 1 lb. of sweet almonds, 4 bitter ones, 1/2 lb. of very finely-sifted castor sugar, the white of an egg. AVERAGE COST for this quantity, 10d.
Blanch the almonds and dry them thoroughly; pound them well in a mortar, wetting them gradually with the white of an egg. When well pounded, put them into a small preserving pan, add the sugar, and place the pan on a small but clear fire (a hot plate is better); keep stirring until the paste ALMOND AND BLOSSOM. is dry, then take it out of the pan, put it be tween two dishes, and when cold make it into any shape that fancy may dictate, or use it for the tops of cakes.
TIME. hour.
The problem here is the four bitter almonds, which are not a flavouring quirk but a source of cyanide. A few notes on why this version cannot be followed, and on the vocabulary of the original.
- Bitter almondsBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which the almond's own enzyme converts to hydrogen cyanide as soon as the kernel is crushed and wetted — exactly what pounding in a mortar with egg white does. Bitter almonds cannot legally be sold for food in the United States and are restricted elsewhere; the commercial bitter almond oil used in modern confectionery has had the prussic acid removed.
- Why the quantity is not reassuringFour kernels in a pound of paste is a small proportion, but the paste is not cooked through and is eaten in unmeasured amounts by whoever likes it best, including children, for whom the toxic dose is lower. Victorian cookery treated bitter almonds as a routine seasoning.
- The heating does not fix itThe pan stage here only drives off moisture over a low fire or hotplate. It is not a measured temperature or duration, so it cannot be relied on to deal with the glycoside, and the egg white beaten in raw cannot be assumed to reach a safe temperature either.
- If you want almond pasteUse a current marzipan or almond paste recipe, which will call for sweet almonds or ground almonds with a measured amount of commercial almond extract or bitter almond oil. Do not substitute apricot or peach kernels, which carry the same compound.
- Reading the originalCastor sugar is superfine sugar, not confectioners'. A "preserving pan" is a wide, heavy pan, usually copper or brass and often unlined; "a small but clear fire" means low, steady heat with no smoke. The cost of 10d is ten pence in pre-decimal currency.
Sweet and bitter almonds were sold side by side by British grocers well into the twentieth century, and many a marzipan, ratafia and almond-flavoured cream in a Victorian book calls for a few bitter kernels to sharpen the flavour of the sweet — the bitterness and the toxicity come from the same compound. Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management and its many later revisions, of which this alphabetical All About Cookery is one descendant, treat almond paste as basic confectioner's stock: pounded to shape by hand for sweets, or rolled out to sheet the top of a cake before icing, as on a wedding or Simnel cake. The mortar and pestle here is not nostalgia but necessity; pounding with liquid was the standard way to keep the nuts from oiling. Bitter almonds faded from domestic use over the course of the twentieth century, and the almond essence on a modern shelf is what replaced them.