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Dessert

Delicate Tea Cakes

A light cake made with egg whites, sugar, milk, butter, flour, almonds, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Delicate Tea Cakes

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. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the sweet milk or cream to the butter mixture and mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites and almonds gently.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 15-20 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and give the cakes a airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives tenderness and rich flavor.
White sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens and helps the cakes brown.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cakes bake.
Cream of tartar
An acid that stabilizes the whipped egg whites and works with baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring gently keeps the air bubbles from the whipped whites intact. Overmixing deflates them, leaving the cakes dense instead of light.

“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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