Why it works: Almond and flour 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Pound the almonds in a mortar with the rose water.
Sift and warm the flour.
Warm the sugar in a bowl and add the eggs, leaving out 7 egg whites.
Make the batter
Beat the mixture for 1 hour.
Fold in the flour and almond mixture until combined.
Pour the batter into a pan lined with buttered paper.
Bake
Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,465 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Almonds
- Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the cake, and fat that keeps the crumb moist.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and lift through the whole eggs and whipped mixture that set during baking.
- All-purpose flour
- Gives the cake its structure by forming gluten and setting the crumb as it bakes.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the eggs hold air when beaten with them.
The step that matters
Beat the mixture for 1 hour. Long beating traps air in the warm egg and sugar mixture, which gives the cake its lift. If the batter is under-beaten, the cake may come out dense.
“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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