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Dessert

Almond Little Cake, Bitter

A puff pastry cake filled with a bitter almond mixture, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Little Cake, Bitter

30 cakes

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 filling

  1. Pound the bitter almonds and strain them through a sieve.

  2. In a bowl, mix the strained almonds with the egg white and sugar using a silver spoon for a few minutes.

Shape the cakes

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick and cut out 30 cakes, each 2.5 inches long and 2.25 inches wide, pointed at the ends.

  2. Place a spoonful of the almond mixture on each cake and spread it evenly to about ⅛ inch thick.

  3. Let the cakes stand for 30 minutes before baking in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

Bake

  1. Bake until slightly colored on top and reddish on the bottom.

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

Bitter almonds
Provide the main nutty almond flavour and the body of the filling.
Egg white
Binds the almond mixture together and helps it spread evenly over the pastry.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top and bottom brown during baking.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered base that rises and crisps in the oven.

The step that matters

Baking until the cakes are only slightly colored. Puff pastry rises from steam trapped between its layers, and sugar browns quickly at high heat. Pulling the cakes at the right colour keeps the pastry flaky and the almond filling from over-browning or drying out.

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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