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Dessert

Almond Cream Cake

A layered cake with almond cream filling and almond topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Cream 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 layers

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

  2. In a bowl, sift powdered sugar and flour together with cream of tartar.

  3. Gently fold the sifted mixture into the beaten egg whites.

  4. Pour the batter into jelly pans and bake until golden.

Make the almond cream

  1. For the cream, heat the heavy cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolks, powdered sugar, and cornstarch dissolved in a little milk.

  3. Once the cream is boiling, stir in the yolk mixture and cook until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and fold in the chopped almonds.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Assemble the cake by layering the cream between the cake layers while the icing is still soft.

  2. Decorate the top with split almonds.

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 whites
Whipped to hold air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the set structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they cook and add richness and colour.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the cream a smooth, rich texture.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a pleasant texture to the cream and the topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk mixture into the cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the mixture boils too hard or too fast it can scramble, leaving lumps. Stirring constantly and cooking only until thickened keeps the cream smooth.

“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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