Name: Almond Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; ½ teaspoon almond extract; ½ cup sugar; ½ teaspoon lemon extract; ½ teaspoon orange extract; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 2 oz almonds (ground or finely chopped); 1½ cups flour

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Almond 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.

Make the batter

Cream the butter, sugar, and flavorings together.
Add well-beaten eggs and mix well.
Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add to the mixture.
Stir in the ground almonds.

Bake

Bake for about an hour in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,125 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,655 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat that makes the cake rich and tender.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming adds air.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Almonds: Add moisture, nutty flavor, and a tender crumb.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.

Swap the orange

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Orangethe original

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