How to Make Homemade Almond Extract (Crème de Noyeaux)

Published: Feb 24, 2024 Modified: Feb 24, 2024 Author: Alan Bergo

With its potent almond flavor and subtle notes of cherry, homemade almond extract is easy to make and delicious in drinks, cakes and desserts. It's the perfect substitute for almond extract or creme de noyeaux liqueur that's often colored with cheap red dye. There's a few different ways you can make it, read on and I'll explain.

A jar of homemade almond extract or creme de noyeaux. — You can buy extract bottles at Michaels and other craft stores.

Ask people of a certain age about canning and you might here stories of peach jam or cherry jelly being cooked with a handful of the pits or kernels removed from the shell. The seeds aren't eaten, but they lend a subtle almond taste to the finished preserve. As you might be suspecting, the almond flavor hidden in stone fruit pits is the key to making a good extract.

Wild plum seeds on a wooden background. — Wild plum kernels are tedious. I don't recommend starting with them.

How to Make Almond Extract

I'm using wild plums but peach, apricot, plum or cherry pits will work fine too. Take a tip from my friend Ellen Zachos and save the pits in the freezer until you need them. Her almond joy cocktail sounds great too!

Some recipes claim to use chopped almonds or blanched almonds, but, that simply doesn't work. I assume this is a conflation of bitter and sweet almonds. Traditionally bitter almonds are used to make almond extract. However, they're currently banned in the United States and Europe as they can be dangerous mishandled.

Almond extract is super easy to make at home. The first step is drying the stone fruit pits. The images below describe the process.

A dehydrator tray filled with stone fruit seeds. — Clean and dehydrate some stone fruit pits.

A close up image of a wild plum pit showing damage from insects. — If you use wild fruit discard any pits with bug damage.

Cracking stone fruit shells using a hammer or molcajete. — Crack the shell with a hammer and harvest the seed.

Once the pits are dried and cracked you remove as many shell fragments as you can. It doesn't have to be perfect.

A bowl of stone fruit seeds and shells. — Remove the shells from the stone fruit pits.

Adding vodka to a jar of stone fruit pits to make extract. — Cover the seeds with vodka.

Putting a label on a jar of homemade almond extract. — Label and date the jar.

After the mixture has macerated for at least a month, strain it, and sweeten it to taste. You can use maple syrup or simple syrup to keep it light in color.

Straining finished homemade almond extract into glass mason jar with a non-reactive lid. — Strain the extract into a jar with a non-reactive lid.

Adding simple syrup to a jar of homemade almond extract. — Sweeten the extract to taste with simple syrup.

I've also made extracts of cherry pits by simply crushing the shell and seed together after sifting to make my Siberian Bird Cherry Cake.

A small glass filled with cherry pit liquor. — Black cherry liqueur / extract.

Sometimes vanilla bean is added, and you could add a few leaves of dried or fresh sweet scented garlium (Galium triflofum) as it's such a nice vanilla substitute.

Leaves of Galium triflorum growing in the summer. — *Galium triflorum* is a widely available plant.

How to Use Homemade Almond Extract

There's so many things you can make with this. Baked goods, fruit or dairy based desserts and drinks are classic. Here's a few examples of things you can make with it.

A panna cotta topped with stewed strawberries and blueberries on a china plate. — It's delicious used to flavor a simple panna cotta.

Use it to make homemade amaretto ice cream.
Add a splash to just about any fruit sauce or coulis.
Anything cream based, like amaretto ice cream and panna cotta.
Add to fruit preserves like jams, jellies, fruit butters and freezer jams.
Drinks, especially ones with cherry flavors or dairy based drinks.
Add a splash to warm homemade nut milk.
One of my favorites is using it as a flavoring for compound gins and liqueurs. If you make something like nocino or cassis you can throw a few seeds in, or finish it with a splash before bottling.

A pan of cooked strawberries and blueberries. — Fruits aux noyeaux is a simple stewed fruit sauce scented with the extract.

A glass of chokecherry cocktail next to a bottle of bourbon and a bowl of wild cherries. — Cherry flavored cocktails would love a splash of noyeaux.

Is Homemade Almond Extract Dangerous?

No, but like some other seasonings (cinnamon) it should be used sparingly. Stone fruit pits from cherries and peaches, as well as other parts of plants in the Rosaceae family contain the compound amygdalin which our body converts to benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.

All stone fruit are in the genus Prunus and will contain amygdalin, as well as a number of plants in the greater Rosaceae family. Apples and serviceberries are related and the seeds of the fruit have the same characteristics. Meadowsweet flowers , spring buds of rowan and cherry trees also taste of amygdalin.

The young buds of the rowan tree, Sorbus americana. — Rowan tree buds.

Cooking makes the amygdalin safe, but can also change the flavor and/or weaken it. Drying also helps tame the amygdalin too. Note that the seeds aren't eaten in this recipe and are discarded after they've flavored the extract.

If you're skeptical on using stone fruit pits as an ingredient, I also discuss a number of traditional uses of cherry pits from around the world in my post: Cherry Pits: A Traditional Almond Flavoring. Fruits are so fascinating.

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