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Dessert

Almond Genoese Cake

A sponge cake flavored with almonds, brandy, and orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Genoese Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, brandy, butter, eggs, sugar, and salt until smooth.

Bake and shape

  1. Pour the batter into buttered tins, about a quarter inch thick.

  2. Bake until light brown.

  3. Cut into small cakes in any fanciful shape.

Ice and finish

  1. Mix chopped almonds with sugar and orange flower water for icing.

  2. Spread icing on each cake and sprinkle with the almond mixture.

  3. Dust with a little sugar and return to the oven to brown.

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whipped into the batter, they trap air and set to give the cake its light structure.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, forming the crumb that holds the cake together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the surface brown during baking.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a crunchy texture to the icing topping.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Eggs and flour set as the sponge bakes, so the cake needs enough heat to firm up. Overbaking dries the thin layer and makes it crumbly, so watch the colour closely.

Swap the orange

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

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

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