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 ↓
Almond Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Blanch the bitter and sweet almonds, then lay them on a dry cloth in the sun to dry.
Powder and sift the loaf sugar.
Break the eggs into the powdered sugar and beat until very light.
Pound the dried almonds in a mortar to a smooth paste, adding rose-water to prevent oiling.
Stir the almond paste into the egg and sugar mixture.
Bake
Gently fold in the flour just before placing the mixture into the oven.
Grease thin-bottomed pans with butter and pour in the mixture.
Bake in a quick oven at 400°F (200°C).
Ice and serve
For icing, mix the egg whites with powdered sugar and lemon juice to make a thick paste.
Spread the icing on the warm cake.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,465 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Eggs
- Beaten until very light, they give the cake its airy structure and rise.
- Almonds
- Ground to a paste, they supply the body, richness and nutty flavour of the cake.
- Flour
- Folded in last, it provides the structure that holds the light batter together.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the beaten eggs hold their volume.
The step that matters
Folding in the flour. Flour should be folded in gently and just before baking, because vigorous stirring develops gluten and knocks out the air the beaten eggs trapped, leaving a denser cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar, egg, flour, rose, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, egg, flour, rose, butter. 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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