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Dessert

Almond Cake

A baked cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, brandy, flour, almonds, and a topping of chopped almonds, sugar, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the yolks of the eggs, brandy, and salt; mix well.

  3. Stir in the flour and pounded almonds until combined.

  4. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the batter into a greased tin pan, about 1 inch thick.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until lightly colored.

  3. Mix the chopped almonds, sugar, and beaten egg white; spread over the cake when nearly done.

  4. Return the cake to the oven to finish baking.

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. Butter + almondtop 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. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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
Creams with sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter for a smooth, tender texture.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks to lighten the batter; beaten white also binds the topping.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Almonds
Pounded almonds add moisture and nutty flavor; chopped almonds add texture to the topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the cake rises light instead of deflating.

“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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