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Dessert

Almond Cake

A baked cake made with butter, milk, sugar, flour, vanilla, baking powder, egg yolks and whites, almond cream, rosewater, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sugar with the well-beaten yolks of 12 eggs and the well-beaten whites of 9 eggs.

  2. Add the flour and beat for about 10 minutes.

  3. Pound the almonds and mix with rosewater to form a cream.

  4. Combine the almond cream with the sweet cream and add to the egg mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake 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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whites provide structure and richness, setting as the cake bakes.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter brown as it bakes.
Pounded almonds
Add nutty flavour and moisture, making the crumb tender.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, enriching the batter's texture.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for about 10 minutes after adding the flour. Beating develops gluten in the flour, which gives structure. Overbeating can make the cake tough, so the time should be watched closely.

“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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