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 Cake
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 batter
Beat the blanched bitter almonds very fine.
In a bowl, combine the finely sifted flour and the beaten almonds.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the pounded loaf sugar until well combined.
Add the flour and almond mixture to the egg mixture, then stir in the rose water.
Bake and ice
Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
For icing, beat the egg whites and gradually add the 24 teaspoons of loaf sugar until stiff peaks form.
Season the icing with lemon, rose water, or vanilla to taste.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,465 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,174 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whisked eggs trap air and, with their proteins, set to give the cake its structure.
- Flour
- Starch and gluten form the crumb that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
- Blanched bitter almonds
- Ground almonds add fat and moisture, giving a tender, rich crumb and nutty flavour.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
- Rose water
- Adds a floral aroma to the batter.
The step that matters
Beating the icing to stiff peaks. Egg whites whipped with sugar form a stable foam only when beaten long enough and sugar is added gradually. Underbeaten whites stay runny and will not hold the icing on the cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, flour, egg, sugar, rose):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, flour, egg, sugar, rose. 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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