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Dessert

Almond Cakes

Almond cakes made from sweet almonds, egg whites, and sugar, topped with sliced almonds and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Almond Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Pound the sweet almonds and loaf sugar together.

  2. Beat in the egg whites until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Using a pastry bag, drop the mixture onto wafer paper in walnut-sized portions, spacing them about an inch apart.

  2. Top each cake with a few slices of almond and dust with powdered sugar.

  3. Bake until golden, then let cool and carefully remove the wafer paper from the edges.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty almond flavor of the cakes.
Egg whites
Bind the almond and sugar mixture and help the cakes hold their shape.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the batter a smooth, cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking has to be stopped at golden colour, because overbaking dries the almond cakes and darkens the sugar. Cooling before peeling the wafer paper lets the cakes set so they release cleanly.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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