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Dessert

An Old German Almond Cake

A sweet almond cake made with sugar, flour, eggs, almonds, cardamom, cinnamon, baking powder, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cardamom and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,299 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

An Old German 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 and bake

  1. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

  2. Mix in the order given with the other ingredients.

  3. Bake in two deep pans at 350°F (175°C).

Assemble

  1. Put the layers together with your preferred filling or a plain frosting.

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. Cardamom + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together457 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cardamomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff, they trap air that lifts and lightens the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb stay tender and browned.
Grated almonds
Add flavour, fat and a tender, moist texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Mix in the order given with the other ingredients. Stiffly beaten egg whites hold the cake's air, so they should be combined gently and in the stated order to avoid deflating them. Overmixing toughens the batter and makes the cake dense.

Swap the cardamom

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, almond, cinnamon. 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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