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Dessert

Another Savoy Cake

A sweet cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, lemon peel, orange flower water, pralines, almonds, citron, candied citron, pistachios, baked in a butter‑greased mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Another Savoy 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

  1. Weigh the eggs and sugar, ensuring the sugar is heavier.

  2. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Make the batter

  1. Add the yolks to the egg whites while beating continuously.

  2. Incorporate the sugar, then the flour, followed by lemon peel, orange flower water, and pralines.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a mold with butter and add chopped almonds and citron.

  2. Pour the batter into the mold and top with candied citron, almonds, and pistachios.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours or longer if the cake is large.

  4. Remove from the oven and turn out of the mold.

  5. If the cake is a good color, serve plain; if not, ice it or drizzle with syrup and sprinkle with nonpareil comfits.

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. Almond + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites create the airy structure that lifts the cake while baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Flour
Provides the set structure that holds the light crumb together.
Butter
Greases the mold so the cake releases cleanly and browns at the edges.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites to stiff peaks. Under-whipped whites leave the cake dense, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and collapse. Stiff, glossy peaks give the batter the air that makes the cake rise.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, lemon, butter, almond, pistachio):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, lemon, butter, almond, pistachio. 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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