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Dessert

Rout Cakes

A sweet almond cake made with blanched almonds, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, and baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Rout Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the paste

  1. Bruise the almonds fine in a mortar, then add the whole egg and rub with a pestle until fine.

  2. Mix in the sifted sugar and grated lemon rind.

  3. Combine with 2 or 3 egg yolks to form a stiff paste.

  4. Beat the mixture with a pestle for 2 to 3 minutes.

Shape and rest

  1. Shape the mixture as desired and place on paper laid on iron plates.

  2. Top some with dried cherries, candied peel, and almonds.

  3. Let them stand overnight before baking.

Bake

  1. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the paste.
Sifted lump sugar
Sweetens the paste and helps it hold a stiff, workable texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the ground almonds and sugar into a stiff paste.
Whole egg
Adds moisture and binding to the almond paste.

The step that matters

Baking until light brown. Almond paste dries and darkens quickly in heat, so the cakes can over-brown or dry out before they are set through. Watching for a light golden colour rather than a fixed time helps keep them moist.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, lemon):

  1. Pistachiofits about as well
  2. Milletfits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon. 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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