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Dessert

Almond Little Cake, Bitter

A small bitter almond cake made with almond paste, egg white, sugar, and puff pastry.

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

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.

Make the almond glaze

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

  2. In an earthen vessel, mix the strained almonds with nearly the egg white and sugar, stirring with a silver spoon for a few minutes.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Place a quarter teaspoon of the almond glaze on each cake and spread it evenly with a knife to about ⅛ inch thick.

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

  4. Bake until slightly colored on top and the bottom is red.

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 almond flavour and the bulk of the glaze.
Egg white
Binds the ground almonds and sugar into a spreadable glaze.
Sugar
Sweetens the glaze and helps it brown during baking.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky base that holds the glaze as the cakes bake.

The step that matters

Spreading the glaze to an even thickness. Glaze spread unevenly bakes unevenly, so thick spots may stay raw while thin edges scorch. Spreading it evenly to about ⅛ inch helps each cake bake at the same rate.

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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