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Dessert

Gefulde Boterkoek.

A Dutch butter cake filled with citron peel, ground almonds, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Gefulde Boterkoek.

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 375°F (190°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough and filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

  2. In a bowl, work the butter into the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt to make a paste.

  3. In another bowl, mix the citron peel, ground almonds, powdered sugar, and butter.

  4. Add the vanilla and egg yolks to the mixture and combine well.

Assemble

  1. Roll out the dough.

  2. Divide the dough into two parts.

  3. Place one half of the dough in a well-buttered baking dish.

  4. Spread the filling evenly over it.

  5. Cover with the other half of the dough.

  6. Brush the top with beaten egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Let it cool before cutting into pieces.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender, crumbly texture as it is worked into the flour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the paste and cake together.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Ground almonds
Adds moisture, body and nutty flavour to the filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and add richness to the dough.
Citron peel
Adds a bright, aromatic citrus flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Let it cool before cutting into pieces. The butter-rich filling and dough set as they cool. Cutting while still hot lets the layers slump and crumble, so the pieces hold their shape only after cooling.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

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