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Dessert

Victoria Cake

A buttery almond and cherry sponge cake with cream, baked to a light brown finish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Victoria 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

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Add powdered sugar, pounded sweet almonds, bitter almonds, almond powder, dried cherries, candied peel, 1 pound of flour, salt, and 4 eggs. Mix well.

  3. Gradually add the remaining ¾ pound of flour and 8 well-beaten eggs while mixing.

  4. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water.

  5. Make a hollow in the batter. Knead the yeast into the batter thoroughly.

  6. Whip the cream until frothy. Fold the whipped cream into the batter.

Rise and bake

  1. Line a baking tin with buttered paper. Fill it halfway with the mixture.

  2. Cover the tin with a cloth. Let the batter rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Fresh butter
Creams with the sugar to give the cake a rich, tender crumb and flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Fresh german yeast
Produces gas that lifts the batter so it rises before baking.
Cream
Whipped and folded in to add lightness and moisture to the batter.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps cream the butter into a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise until doubled. The yeast needs warm, enough time to produce gas. If the batter under-rises, the cake bakes dense; the folded cream must stay airy so it is not knocked out during mixing.

“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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