A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Created by Chef Juliette
Based on No. 2338, Various Almond Preparations, from Le Guide Culinaire (1907) by Auguste Escoffier
Five almond preparations, one discipline: remove the skins cleanly, dry every kernel through, then cut, toast, or cloak it in pale caramel without letting its fragrant oils escape.
Préparations Diverses d’Amandes (Various Almond Preparations) teaches the pastry pantry’s quiet law: drying decides everything. A damp almond clumps in storage and colors unevenly, while an overheated almond sheds its fragrant oil and turns pasty under the knife. Control the moisture and five useful preparations open from one bowl.
The original pastry kitchen moved large trays between a drying-box, a mild oven, and the gentler front of a hotter oven, with spare hands nearby to stir them. Your honest equivalents are a sheet pan, parchment, and two oven settings: 120°C for drying and 165°C for coloring. The source gives no fixed weight because the kitchen prepared whatever service required, so I have set a useful 500 g home batch. The drying-box and canvas sieve are brigade scaffolding and can go; gradual drying, hand cutting, and frequent stirring are the preparation itself and must stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.
Before storing or coating any batch, break open one almond. Its center should feel dry and firm, never rubbery or cool with trapped moisture. If it is still damp, return the tray to the low oven. Ça se rattrape.
These almond preparations belong to the national French pastry pantry, with particularly visible regional uses in the calissons of Aix-en-Provence and the nougat of Montélimar before they pass into pâtisserie work across France. Generations of pastry cooks kept almonds ready in several cuts because each behaved differently in nougat, confectionery, cake decoration, and baked fillings. In this vocabulary, grillées means evenly colored in the oven with frequent stirring, not marked over an open flame.
Quantity
3½ cups (840 ml / 500 g)
Quantity
8 cups (1.9 L / 1.9 kg)
divided, for scalding, cooling, and rinsing
Quantity
¼ cup (60 ml / 30 g) per ¾ cup (180 ml / 100 g) almonds, up to 1¼ cups (300 ml / 150 g)
sifted
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| whole raw almonds, skins on | 3½ cups (840 ml / 500 g) |
| waterdivided, for scalding, cooling, and rinsing | 8 cups (1.9 L / 1.9 kg) |
| icing sugar (optional)sifted | ¼ cup (60 ml / 30 g) per ¾ cup (180 ml / 100 g) almonds, up to 1¼ cups (300 ml / 150 g) |
Heat the oven to 120°C (250°F) with a rack in the middle. Line two rimmed sheet pans with parchment and keep another cool pan nearby for stopping the cooking later. You will raise the oven to 165°C (325°F) only when the almonds are dry and ready to color.
Bring half the water to a full boil in a saucepan, remove the pan from the heat, and add the almonds. Leave them at the side for 7 to 8 minutes without allowing the water to boil again. Press one almond between your fingers; when the skin slips easily, drain the batch, cool it in the remaining cold water, and squeeze each kernel from its skin. Rinse the skinned almonds in fresh cold water and drain thoroughly. If some skins cling, cover only those almonds with freshly boiled water for 1 minute and try again. Ça se rattrape.
If making all five preparations, divide the skinned almonds into five portions of about ¾ cup (180 ml / 100 g) each: Amandes mondées, skinned almonds; Amandes effilées, splintered almonds; Amandes hachées, chopped almonds; Amandes grillées, oven-colored almonds; and Amandes pralinées, almonds coated in caramelized icing sugar. The grillées and pralinées may be either splintered or chopped, so choose their cut now and keep every portion separate.
Spread the Amandes mondées in one uncrowded layer. Dry them at 120°C (250°F) for 25 to 35 minutes, stirring every 8 to 10 minutes, until the surfaces are no longer tacky and a broken kernel is dry at its center. They should remain ivory, not toasted. If they still feel rubbery or gather into damp clumps, give them another 10 minutes and test again before cooling.
While the appropriate almonds are still slightly pliable from scalding, split each one lengthwise into two halves with a sharp paring knife, then cut every half lengthwise into five or six fine splinters. Spread the Amandes effilées on a lined pan and dry them at 120°C (250°F) for 15 to 25 minutes, stirring twice. Raise the oven to 165°C (325°F) and give the plain splintered portion another 4 to 7 minutes, just until lightly colored. If the finest pieces brown first, lift them away and return the pale ones to the oven rather than darkening the whole batch.
Dry the almonds destined for chopping at 120°C (250°F) for 8 to 10 minutes, then cool them completely. Chop with a dry chef’s knife, stopping while the pieces remain distinct. Rub them through a coarse 3 to 4 mm metal sieve, the home equivalent of the canvas sieve, and rechop anything too large to pass. Spread the Amandes hachées on parchment and dry them for another 12 to 18 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. If they begin smearing beneath the knife, stop and chill them for 10 minutes before continuing; caught early, the oil firms again. Almonds already reduced to paste cannot return to a clean chop, so reserve those for a frangipane.
Set the oven to 165°C (325°F). Spread the dried splintered or chopped almonds for Amandes grillées in a thin layer and bake for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring and turning them every 2 minutes so their edges color evenly. Remove them when they are a clear golden shade but not brown; they continue coloring briefly on the hot pan. If one area runs ahead, transfer the entire batch to the cool pan, separate the darker pieces, and return only the pale ones to the oven.
Keep the oven at 165°C (325°F) and warm the dried splintered or chopped almonds for 2 minutes. For each ¾ cup (180 ml / 100 g) almonds, use ¼ cup (60 ml / 30 g) sifted icing sugar. Sprinkle on one-quarter of the sugar in a fine, even veil, stir thoroughly, and bake for 2 to 3 minutes. Repeat the dusting, stirring, and baking until the sugar has melted around the almonds in a thin pale-brown coat. If the sugar collects in patches, separate the almonds with two forks while warm and return them for 1 minute; ça se rattrape. If the sugar begins smoking, move everything immediately to the cool pan because caramel crosses from amber to bitter quickly.
Spread every preparation separately and let it cool completely before packing. Store each in a labeled airtight jar, with the Amandes pralinées kept apart from uncoated almonds. If condensation appears inside any jar, empty it onto a pan and dry the almonds again at 120°C (250°F) for 5 to 10 minutes. The pastry pantry is ready.
1 serving (about 28g)
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary Explorer
Chef Juliette
A pastry pantry lesson in one tray: filberts warmed only until their red skins release, rubbed clean, cooled, and chopped into a fragrant mise-en-place for cakes, creams, pralines, and petits fours.
Chef Juliette
Three states, one lesson: control butter’s water and texture before it meets the pastry, then soften, work to pommade, or clarify according to the job it must do.
Chef Juliette
The smallest pâtisserie discipline decides whether a cake leaves its mould intact: clarified butter in every corner, followed by the lightest veil of dry flour or fécule.
Chef Juliette
Four whites, one spotless bowl, and a patient change of speed: whisk gently until loosened, then briskly to glossy stiffness, with powdered sugar waiting if the foam begins to granulate.