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Dessert

Almond Paste Cake

A cake made from almond paste, sugar, gum tragacanth, rose water, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Paste Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Pound a quarter of the blanched almonds with a little rose water to prevent oiling until it forms a paste.

  2. Repeat with the remaining almonds until all are pounded.

  3. Pass the almond paste through a fine sieve into a preserving kettle.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the sugar and place over low heat, stirring for about 25 minutes.

  2. When the mixture feels tough, remove it from the heat.

  3. In a mortar, combine the paste with the soaked gum tragacanth and lemon juice, and pound until cool.

  4. If not used immediately, roll into a ball and keep under a basin to maintain moisture.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 paste body, with their oil giving richness and a smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and, as it cooks, thickens it into a firm mass.
Gum tragacanth
Acts as a thickener and binder, giving the paste body and a firm, pliable texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the paste over low heat. Stirring over low heat keeps the sugar and almond mixture from scorching while it thickens. Removing it when it feels tough stops it from becoming too stiff once cooled.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, rose, 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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