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Dessert

Almond Cake. No. 1

A baked almond cake made with blanched almonds, rose water, sugar, butter, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Almond Cake. No. 1

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

  1. Beat the blanched almonds to a paste with rose-water.

  2. Cream the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  4. Sift the flour.

Make the batter and bake

  1. Add two tablespoons of flour and two eggs to the butter and sugar mixture alternately until fully combined.

  2. Fold in the almond paste gently.

  3. Bake immediately in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

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

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Almonds
Provide moisture and a dense, tender crumb through the ground almond paste.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter texture.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and beaten whites help lift the batter.
Flour
Gives the cake its structure as the proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake, helps tenderize it, and contributes to browning.

The step that matters

Fold in the almond paste gently. The air in the beaten egg whites and creamed butter is what lifts the cake. Vigorous mixing at this stage deflates the batter, producing a dense, heavy crumb.

“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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