Why it works: Almond and white wine work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 331 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Tipsy Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cake
Bake the sponge cake in a mold.
Assemble
Blanch the almonds, split them into four pieces, and insert them into the cake.
Place the cake in a deep dish and pour enough white wine over it to absorb.
Let it stand for one hour.
Pour in as much soft custard as the dish will hold.
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 + white winetop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together331 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
- Sponge cake
- Provides the soft, absorbent base that soaks up the wine.
- White wine
- Moistens the cake and adds aroma and light acidity.
- Soft custard
- Adds moisture and richness to the cake as it fills the dish.
- Almonds
- Add crunch and nutty flavor against the soft cake and custard.
The step that matters
Letting the cake stand after soaking in wine. The wine needs time to be absorbed evenly through the sponge so the cake becomes moist without turning soggy. Standing for the full hour lets the liquid spread through the crumb before the custard is added.
“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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