Skip to main content
Dessert

Angelica Cakes

A sweet cake flavored with chopped angelica and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Angelica and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 170 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Angelica Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Sift the flour and mix it with the baking powder.

  3. Prepare your baking tins by greasing them.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time to the batter.

  3. Stir in the chopped angelica and vanilla extract.

  4. Gradually fold in the flour mixture.

Bake and cool

  1. Half fill the tins with the batter and bake for 20 minutes.

  2. Turn out the cakes onto a wire rack to cool.

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. Angelica + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + angelicatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Bind the batter and add structure as the cakes set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure once it sets during baking.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and, when creamed with butter, traps air for a lighter crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise as they bake.
Angelica
Adds its distinctive aromatic flavour and chopped pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them all at once can cause the mixture to split, which may make the cakes heavy or greasy.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Angelicathe original

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes