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Dessert

Almond Rout Cakes

A sweet almond cake made by grinding almonds and sugar, mixing with egg yolks, shaping, baking, and decorating with candied peel and gum arabic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Rout Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the paste

  1. Finely grind the almonds and sugar together.

  2. Mix with yolks of eggs to form a moderately stiff paste.

  3. Shape the paste as desired and dust your work surface with powdered sugar.

Rest and bake

  1. Place the shapes on slightly buttered baking sheets or on sugar-dusted parchment paper, ensuring they do not touch.

  2. Let them sit in a warm place for 24 hours before baking.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake until lightly colored.

Decorate

  1. Decorate with nonpareils, candied peel, drops, and comfits while the paste is moist or after baking.

  2. To use gum arabic, mix it with water to create a mucilage and brush it on areas for decoration.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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 of the paste, giving the cakes their structure and nutty flavor.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps bind the ground almonds into a workable paste.
Yolks of eggs
Bind the ground almonds and sugar into a stiff paste that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Resting the shapes for 24 hours before baking. Resting in a warm place lets the paste dry and firm at the surface, so the shapes keep their form and bake without spreading.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Filbertfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

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