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Dessert

Delicious Cake

A simple almond-flavored cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Delicious 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 the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together.

  3. Add beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Fold the beaten whites into the mixture.

  6. Dissolve baking soda in milk.

  7. Add the milk mixture to the batter.

  8. Rub cream of tartar into flour.

  9. Gradually add flour to batter.

  10. Add almond extract to batter.

  11. Mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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. Butter + almondtop 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites add lift and a light, airy crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds fat for a tender texture.
White sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps give the cake a fine, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar and milk to help the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
An acid that works with baking soda to produce gas for rising and stabilizes the whites.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, and the cake comes out denser and flatter.

“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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