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Dessert

Almond Custard Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, sweet cream, blanched almonds, and flavored with almond or vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Almond Custard 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 the batter

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

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the flour and egg yolks, then mix well.

  4. Beat the sweet cream until frothy.

  5. Add 4 tablespoons of sugar to the frothy cream.

  6. Mix the frothy cream with the beaten egg whites.

  7. Chop the blanched almonds.

  8. Fold the chopped almonds into the cream and egg mixture.

  9. Flavor with almond or vanilla extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake until golden.

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 + 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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Creams with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten to foam, they lighten the batter and help it rise and set.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and emulsifying power that keeps the crumb moist.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, and its froth lightens the batter.
Blanched soft shell almonds
Add nutty flavour and a moist, tender texture when folded in.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites and chopped almonds. Beaten egg whites hold air that gives lift; stirring them vigorously deflates the foam and produces a dense cake. Fold gently so the batter keeps its volume.

“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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