Skip to main content
Dessert

Delicate Cake

A light cake made with butter, egg whites, flour, cold water, lemon juice, almond, mace, and cream tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Delicate Cake

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 Cake

one loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Add the sugar gradually and cream together.

  3. Add the eggs unbeaten, one-half at a time, and beat together until light.

  4. Add lemon juice.

  5. Sift the flour before measuring.

  6. Add water and flour alternately.

  7. Mix the baking powder with the last half cupful of the flour and sift into the cake.

  8. Beat thoroughly, and add the flavoring.

  9. Beat the cake for five minutes after everything is added.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven for one loaf, fifty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

754Calories
21 gProtein
24 gFat
113 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Butter
Adds fat that creates a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Add structure and lift when beaten into the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the creamed butter hold air.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one-half at a time. Adding eggs in portions and beating each addition in lets the fat and liquid blend into a stable emulsion. Dumping them in at once can make the batter curdle and lose the air it needs to rise.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes