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Dessert

Almond Cake

A cake with almond filling made from sugar, cornstarch, butter, egg whites, milk, baking soda, flour, cream of tartar, eggs, almonds, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla 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 the batter

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

  2. Mix the flour, cornstarch, and cream of tartar together.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  4. Cream the butter and sugar together, then gradually add the milk.

  5. Add the egg whites and the flour mixture, and mix well.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until golden.

  2. For the filling, blanch the almonds and pound them finely.

  3. Beat the egg whites and yolks together lightly, then add the sugar, almonds, and vanilla.

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 + vanillatop 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped or mixed in, they add lift and structure to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Almonds
Pounded fine, they add moisture, body and nutty flavour to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderise its texture as it creams with the butter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react with and release gas; cream of tartar supplies it in the batter. Dissolving the soda evenly keeps the rise even and avoids bitter pockets.

“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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