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, Rich
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Whisk and strain the eggs.
Mix the eggs with the sweet and bitter almonds and sugar.
Sift in the flour while heating constantly.
Add the melted butter a small portion at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
Stir in the grated lemon rind.
Bake
Line a cake tin with buttered paper and fill it more than halfway with the mixture.
Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour, covering the top with buttered paper when it is sufficiently colored.
Test with a skewer or knife to ensure it is done.
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 + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Whisked eggs trap air and set into the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Sweet almonds
- Add moisture, richness and a nutty flavor to the crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure that sets the cake as it heats.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist texture.
The step that matters
Covering the top when it is sufficiently colored. The top can darken too fast in a hot oven while the centre is still raw. Covering it with buttered paper slows browning so the inside can set evenly without burning the surface.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, almond, sugar, flour, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, almond, sugar, flour, butter. 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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