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Dessert

Almond Cake

A cake made with almond filling and a batter of sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

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 cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Gradually add the milk, then mix in the egg whites.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until just combined.

  6. Pour the batter into greased jelly tins.

  7. Bake until golden.

Make the almond filling

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Finely pound the almonds.

  3. In a bowl, beat the whites and yolks of 2 eggs together lightly.

  4. Add 1½ cups sugar and the pounded almonds to the egg mixture.

  5. Stir in the vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Spread the almond filling between the layers of cake.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter, helping the cake rise and set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, making the cake rise.
Almonds
Pounded into the filling, adding nutty flavor and a moist, dense texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown, while creaming with butter adds air.

The step that matters

Folding the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Folding gently until just combined keeps air in the batter and avoids overmixing, which would develop gluten and make the cake dense and tough.

“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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