Q THE whole almonds, almond meal, almond flakes and slivers we get from supermarkets and bakery supply shops don't taste anything like almonds at all. Why is this so and is there something else we can use for baking without having to resort to almond extracts and essences?

A Three kinds of almonds are used in the food industry. Sweet almonds are the familiar teardrop-shaped nuts sold ground, blanched, flaked, sliced, chopped and toasted as an ingredient or snack. These are also pressed to yield the almond oil used in health-care products.

More rarely seen here are Spanish Marcona almonds, a broad variety of sweet almond that look almost like beige petai beans. The almond of choice for high-end confections and patisseries, Marconas are more oily, more flavourful and more expensive than regular sweet almonds.

Generally, sweet almonds have an appealing richness and crunch, but, as you noted, are rather bland.

Bitter almonds, in contrast, are slightly smaller than sweet almonds and have a slightly different chemical make-up. One of the compounds they contain reacts with water to form other substances that carry the complex and heady, penetratingly bitter-sweet flavour that one thinks of as 'almond'.

This can be sniffed in natural almond extract, marzipan and almond-infused liqueurs such as amaretto. Artificial almond essences mimic this in a tiny, shrill way.

Unfortunately, a by-product of the reaction is hydrogen cyanide, which is why bitter almond extract is poisonous in quantity. Almond food products allowed for sale are safe because they blend mostly sweet almonds with just a few per cent of bitter almonds for flavour.

Some trees related to the almond tree, such as cherry, peach and apricot, bear fruit whose stones contain kernels that share some compounds with, and hence some of the aroma of, bitter almonds. In fact, the sweet and bitter 'almonds' used in Chinese medicine and cuisine are the kernels from two kinds of apricot grown in China. These are used to give almond-like nuances to some foods, for instance, maraschino liqueur, which is made with cherry stones.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Mar 16, 2008.