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Dessert

German Bread Cake

A cake made with eggs, sugar, toasted bread crumbs, almonds, citron, lemon rind, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Bread Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sugar with the egg yolks.

  2. Add the other ingredients, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into angel food cake tins.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped with air provide the main lift and structure, while yolks add richness and moisture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps hold moisture so the cake stays tender.
Toasted white bread crumbs
Bulk and absorbency give the cake body while it stays light and moist.
Grated almonds
Add fat and texture, keeping the crumb moist and tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the cake dense, because that trapped air is what lifts the batter during baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, bread, almond, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, bread, almond, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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