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Dessert

Peach Cakes

A baked cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, almond flavoring, and peach jam, topped with egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Peach Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs thoroughly.

  3. Mix the beaten yolks with sugar, salt, and almond flavoring.

  4. Beat the mixture for 15 minutes.

  5. Gradually add the flour to the mixture.

  6. Whisk the egg whites to a solid froth.

  7. Fold the whipped egg whites into the mixture.

Bake and assemble

  1. Drop small rounds of the batter onto a buttered and floured baking tin.

  2. Bake until lightly browned, watching closely to prevent over-browning.

  3. Spread peach jam on the undersides of the cakes and sandwich them together.

  4. Cover the cakes with a thin layer of icing made from the beaten egg whites.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whipped whites give the batter its airy structure, while the yolks add richness and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Fine flour
Provides the starch that sets the batter into a soft, cake-like crumb.
Peach jam
Adds fruit sweetness and moisture where the cakes are sandwiched together.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the batter's air, so folding gently keeps the cakes light. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam and produces dense, flat cakes.

Swap the peach

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

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

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