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Almond Cake and Lady Baltimore

A sponge cake with an almond filling made from a sugar syrup and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond 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 and Lady Baltimore

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the vanilla extract.

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  7. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  8. Divide the batter into two greased cake pans and bake for 25–30 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water until it threads.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites and whip until nearly cold.

  3. Fold in the chopped almonds and almond extract.

  4. Once the cakes are cool, spread the filling between the layers.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed with the liquids and baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise in the oven.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and add structure to the filling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled with water, forms the syrup that sets the filling.
Blanched almonds
Add texture and nutty flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites. The syrup must be at the threading stage and poured slowly while whipping. The hot sugar cooks the egg whites and sets them into a stable, glossy marshmallow-like filling. Pouring too fast or letting the mixture cool too early can leave it runny or grainy.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

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