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Dessert

Almond Genoese, Bitter

A buttery almond cake made with sweet and bitter almond paste, flour, sugar, eggs, brandy, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour 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, Bitter

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.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Pound the blanched almonds to a paste.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the blanched sweet almond paste with flour, powdered sugar, egg yolks, whole eggs, brandy, and salt for 6 minutes.

  2. Add the warmed butter.

  3. Work the butter into the mixture for 4-5 minutes.

Bake and finish

  1. Butter two 9-10 inch square molds or paper cases.

  2. Pour the mixture into the molds.

  3. Smooth the top with a knife.

  4. Sprinkle with minced sweet almonds mixed with powdered sugar and a little egg white.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  6. Cut into desired shapes.

  7. Return the shapes to the oven to dry until brittle.

  8. Let cool.

  9. Decorate as desired.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and the bulk of the almond paste that gives the cake its body.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more pronounced almond aroma to the paste.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure as the batter sets in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter, giving a tender crumb.
Whole eggs
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour in the finished cake.

The step that matters

Working the butter into the mixture. Butter must be slightly warmed, not melted, so it blends evenly into the batter. If it is too hot or too cold, the batter can separate or turn out dense and greasy.

“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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