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Dessert

Almond Cake

A baked almond cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, corn starch, eggs, almonds, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 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.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Gradually add the sweet milk to the butter mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, then gently add the egg whites.

  6. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, blanch and finely pound the almonds.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites and yolks together lightly.

  3. Add 1½ cups sugar and the ground almonds to the egg mixture, then stir in the vanilla.

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. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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 give the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped air and protein add lift and structure to the batter.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the egg whites and works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the batter to produce gas for rising and light texture.
Almonds
Ground almonds in the filling add body, moisture and nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, then gently add the egg whites.. Overmixing knocks air out of the batter and toughens the crumb, so folding gently keeps the cake light and well risen.

“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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