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Dessert

Rock Cake

A cake made from beaten egg whites, sugar, and almond pieces baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Rock Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the meringue

  1. Whisk the egg whites until very light and dry.

  2. Gradually add 1 teaspoon of sugar at a time while whisking.

  3. Continue beating until all the sugar is incorporated.

Add the almonds and bake

  1. Blanch the almonds and cut them into pieces about the size of a pea.

  2. Mix the almond pieces with the egg mixture.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto sheets of white paper.

  4. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).

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. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whisked to a light foam, they give the cakes their airy structure and lift.
Sugar
Added gradually to the whites, it stabilises the foam and adds sweetness.
Almonds
Pieces add body and a nutty flavour, giving the cakes their rocky, irregular texture.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar gradually while whisking. Sugar added slowly dissolves into the egg white foam and stabilises it. Adding it all at once can deflate the whites, so the cakes lose their light texture.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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