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Dessert

Delicate Tea Cake

A light, frothy cake made with egg whites, powdered sugar, milk, and flour, finished with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Delicate Tea Cake

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the powdered sugar, milk, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  2. Gradually add the flour and cornstarch to the mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites and melted butter.

  4. Add the chopped blanched almonds and mix gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 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. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, giving the cake lift and a light, airy crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Cornstarch
Softens the flour's gluten, producing a more tender, delicate texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Melted butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and keeps the crumb moist and tender.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and contributes to its soft texture and browning.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites; stirring vigorously deflates the foam and results in a denser cake with less rise.

“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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