Skip to main content
Dessert

Vermicelli Cakes

A baked cake made with vermicelli, flour, eggs, butter, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vermicelli Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the vermicelli

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil.

  2. Add 1 pound of vermicelli and stir well.

  3. Strain the vermicelli through a sieve when tender.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the strained vermicelli, 1 cup of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 3 egg yolks, and ½ cup of melted butter.

  2. Beat 3 egg whites to a stiff froth and fold into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) 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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Vermicelli
Provides the bulk and body of the cake, holding the batter together.
All-purpose flour
Gives structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped air lightens the batter and helps it rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too hard knocks out the air trapped in the whipped whites, so the cake rises less and turns dense. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

“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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes