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Dessert

Almond Cream Cake

A layered cake with a sweet almond cream filling and almond garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 Cream 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Sift in the powdered sugar and flour mixed with cream of tartar; fold gently.

  4. Pour the batter into jelly pans and bake until golden.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, heat the sweet cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, dissolve cornstarch in a little milk, then beat in the egg yolks and powdered sugar.

  3. Once the cream is boiling, stir in the egg mixture and cook until thickened.

  4. Blanch and finely chop the almonds, then stir them into the cream.

Assemble

  1. Assemble the cake layers while the icing is soft, adding split almonds for decoration.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the batter's crumb once baked.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they set with heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a smooth, creamy texture.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the cream.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture into the cream. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but if the mixture gets too hot or boils hard after the yolks go in, it can curdle and turn grainy. Stirring steadily and cooking gently until it thickens keeps the cream smooth.

“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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