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Dessert

Napoleon Cakes

A layered pastry made with almond-flavored dough, butter, sugar, and jam, baked until pale brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Napoleon Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Blanch, mince, and pound the almonds, or use ground almonds.

  2. Rub the butter into the flour.

  3. Add sugar and almonds. Mix well.

  4. Moisten with enough yolk of egg to make a stiff paste.

  5. Set aside for 1 hour to firm.

Bake and assemble

  1. Roll out into two thin sheets.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until pale brown.

  3. Spread one sheet with jam.

  4. Lay the other sheet on top.

  5. Cut into fingers while hot.

Serve

  1. Serve on lace paper in a crystal dish.

  2. Dust with icing sugar.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + raspberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry once moistened and rolled.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to make the pastry short and tender.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and a tender, crumbly texture to the paste.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture into a stiff paste that holds its shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pastry brown during baking.
Raspberry jam
Provides sweetness and fruity flavour between the two pastry layers.

The step that matters

Bake until pale brown. Pastry that is underbaked stays doughy and pale, while overbaking makes it dry and hard. Watching for a light golden-brown colour gives a crisp, tender result.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

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