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Dessert

Almond Cake

A layered almond cake with a sweet almond filling, baked in jelly tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and lemon extract.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold them into the batter.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until golden.

  2. Mix the pounded almonds, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract for the filling.

  3. Spread the filling between the layers of cake and frost the top.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Whites of 6 eggs
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the batter and helps the cake rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a fine texture.
Pounded almonds
Provide the nutty flavour and moist, dense body of the filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring them vigorously instead of folding gently knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, almond, vanilla. 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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