Skip to main content
Dessert

Velvet Cake

A light, airy cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, cream, rose water, orange-flower water, almond paste, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and flour 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 ↓

Velvet 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks until thick.

  3. Add the cream, rose water, orange-flower water, and almond paste, then mix until smooth.

  4. Gradually add the flour, then stir well.

  5. Fold in the whipped egg whites gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into square, shallow pans lined with buttered paper.

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

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Rose + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps create air pockets and adds sweetness and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise and become airy.
Double cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold the air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring instead of folding deflates them, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently, just until no streaks remain.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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

More velvet cake recipes

Boston 3Red 3 See all 35 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes