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Dessert

Lady Cake

A buttery almond cake flavored with rose water, made with egg whites and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Lady 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 the almonds

  1. Pour boiling water over the almonds, let them sit briefly, then blanch the almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds in a mortar.

  3. Add a little rose water to the almonds to prevent oiliness.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Stir the pounded almonds into the butter and sugar mixture along with the remaining rose water.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Fold the stiff egg whites into the butter and sugar mixture along with the flour.

Bake

  1. Butter your pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a rich, tender body.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets in the oven.
Whites of 16 eggs
Whisked stiff, they trap air that lifts the batter and sets the crumb.
Bitter almonds
Pounded into the batter to add nutty, aromatic flavor and body.
Sugar
Creams with butter and adds sweetness while helping the batter hold air.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Under-whipped whites will not hold enough air to lift the batter, and over-whipped whites turn grainy and collapse when folded in, leaving a dense cake.

“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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