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Dessert

Little Almond Cake

A small almond cake made with sweet and bitter almonds, powdered sugar, butter, egg, 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 ↓

Little 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds until finely ground.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  2. Add the ground almonds, powdered sugar, and egg to the mixture.

  3. Mix all ingredients together until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into buttered cake tins.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Butter
Rubbed into the flour to coat it and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set into a firm, cohesive crumb.
Sweet almonds
Supply the nutty almond flavor and fine body of the cake.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves smoothly for a fine, even texture.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter until smooth. Overmixing once the flour is in can develop gluten and make the cake tough, while undermixing leaves streaks of unincorporated butter and sugar. Mix just until the batter is uniform.

“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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