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Dessert

Everlasting Cake

A dense almond and citron cake made with egg yolks, sugar, flour, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour 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 ↓

Everlasting Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat together the yolks of 6 eggs and ¾ pint of white sugar.

  2. Add 1½ pints of blanched and shelled almonds, ½ pound of well‑floured sliced citron, and the whipped whites.

  3. Mix in 1½ pints of sifted flour.

  4. Pour the batter 1½ inches thick into well‑greased dripping pans.

Bake and store

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

  2. Cut slices 1 inch thick across the cake.

  3. Turn each slice on its side.

  4. Return the slices to the oven to bake for a short time.

  5. When cold, store in a tin box.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and add richness and color to the crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped whites lighten the batter and give the cake its airy structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as the proteins set during baking.
White sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the crust brown during baking.
Almonds
Add body, nutty flavor and a tender texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Return the slices to the oven. Baking the cut slices a second time dries them out and crisps their surfaces. Too long and they become hard; too short and they stay soft, so the time must be watched closely.

“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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