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Dessert

Almond Cake, or Mandel Toete

A baked almond cake with eggs, sugar, lemon, brandy, and lady-fingers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Cake, or Mandel Toete

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. Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them, then pound in a mortar or grate.

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together vigorously.

  2. Add the grated almonds, lemon peel, lemon juice, brandy, and grated lady-fingers to the egg mixture.

  3. If desired, add a pinch of pulverized ammonia.

  4. Mix well and pour into a prepared baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 the bulk and nutty flavour, and a moist, tender crumb when finely ground.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the cake its structure and binding.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps whip the eggs into a stable, airy base.
Lady-fingers
Add dry crumb and body that soaks up moisture and supports the batter.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs and sugar vigorously. Beating incorporates air into the eggs, which gives the cake lift and a light texture. Under-beaten eggs leave the cake dense, so the batter needs a thorough, energetic beat before the other ingredients go in.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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