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Dessert

Almond Cream Cake

A layered cake with almond cream filling and split almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 Cream 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.

Make the cake layers

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Sift the powdered sugar and flour together with the cream of tartar.

  3. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites without heating.

  4. Pour the mixture into jelly pans and bake until golden.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, heat the sweet cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in a little milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and powdered sugar together, then mix in the cornstarch mixture.

  4. Once the cream is boiling, stir in the egg mixture and cook until thickened.

  5. Blanch and finely chop the almonds, then stir them into the cream.

Assemble

  1. Assemble the cake layers while the icing is still soft, adding split almonds on top.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

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 whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the cake's crumb once baked.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the base of the thickened filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they cook and add richness and a smooth texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream filling so it sets smooth rather than runny.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a chopped texture to the filling, with split almonds for topping.

The step that matters

Folding the dry ingredients into the egg whites. Overmixing or deflating the whipped whites releases the trapped air, so the cake rises less and turns out dense. Fold gently and quickly.

“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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