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Dessert

German Bread Cake

A sweet cake made with eggs, sugar, toasted bread crumbs, almonds, citron, lemon rind, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Bread 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sugar with the egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, salt, grated almonds, grated citron, lemon rind, spices, and baking powder to the yolk mixture.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into angel food cake pans.

  2. Bake for 1 hour.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and help bind the crumb.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilize the yolks, giving a tender crumb.
Toasted white bread crumbs
Add body and absorb moisture, giving the cake structure without much flour.
Grated almonds
Add fat and texture, keeping the crumb moist and tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, so the cake bakes up denser and flatter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, bread, almond, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, bread, almond, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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