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Dessert

Almond Cake

A sweet baked cake made with sugar, butter, sweet milk, flour, egg whites, cream of tartar, baking soda, topped with blanched split almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the sweet milk and flour alternately, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the cream of tartar and baking soda last.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in layers like a jelly cake.

  2. Spread each layer with soft frosting.

  3. Top with blanched split almonds about an inch apart on each layer.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 the sugar to add fat and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped foam and proteins set during baking to give the cake lift and structure.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the egg white foam and adds acidity that helps keep the crumb fine.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas that helps the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb and aid browning.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream of tartar and baking soda last. These leavening agents release gas quickly once mixed with liquid and acid, so they should be folded in at the end and the batter baked promptly to keep the rise.

“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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