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 ↓
Imperial 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour with the chopped citron.
Make the batter
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the almonds and brandy.
Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients.
Pour the batter into thick loaf pans.
Bake
Bake until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,127 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness as they set in the oven, binding the batter.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter to aid aeration and add sweetness and gentle browning.
- Almonds
- Add body, nutty aroma and a moist, dense texture to the crumb.
- Citron
- Adds candied fruit flavour and aromatic bright notes throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully before the next keeps the butter and sugar emulsified. If the mixture curdles, the batter can turn greasy and coarse, so mixing well after each addition matters.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, egg, almond, brandy):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, egg, almond, brandy. 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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