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Dessert

Bourbon Cake

A sweet cake made with eggs, sugar, bitter orange peel, almonds, flour, rose water, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bourbon Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Beat the yolks and whites of 5 eggs separately.

  2. Grate and sift 1 pound of loaf sugar and the peel of 2 bitter oranges.

  3. Blanch and pound ½ pound of sweet almonds with a little rose water.

Mix and bake

  1. Whisk all these ingredients together for 30 minutes.

  2. Mix in ½ pound of dried and sifted flour.

  3. Pour the mixture into a hoop about 3 inches deep.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Finish

  1. Ice the top and sides of the cake immediately after removing it from the oven.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked and separated yolks and whites provide structure and lift to the batter.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter hold air when whisked.
Sweet almonds
Add richness, fat and a tender, moist crumb.
Dried flour
Forms the starch structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Bitter orange peel
Adds aromatic oils that flavour the batter.

The step that matters

Whisk the mixture for 30 minutes. Long whisking traps air in the eggs and sugar, which gives the cake its lift. Flour should be folded in gently afterward so the air is not knocked out before the cake bakes.

Swap the bitter orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, almond, flour, rose, butter, rice):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Bitter orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, almond, flour, rose, butter, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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