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Dessert

Savoy Cakes

Savoy Cakes are a light, lemon-flavored cake made with egg yolks, egg whites, sugar, flour, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Savoy Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine 1 pound of fine sifted sugar with the yolks of 10 eggs.

  2. If it's summer, place the bowl in cold water or on ice to help beat the eggs finer.

  3. Beat the yolks and sugar with a wooden spoon for 20 minutes.

  4. Add the grated rind of 1 lemon to the mixture.

Fold and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff and white.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter gradually.

  3. Sift in 3/4 pound of well-dried flour and mix until combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a mold and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify with the sugar to give the batter body and a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whisked to stiff foam, they trap air that lifts the cake and gives it a light texture.
Fine sifted sugar
Sweetens the cake and, beaten with the yolks, helps build a stable, airy batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen batter so the cake sets firm.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while stiff, so folding gently and gradually keeps the bubbles intact; overmixing deflates the batter and yields a dense cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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