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Dessert

Almond Cream Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, sweet cream, and soft almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Cream together the butter, sugar, and flour.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the 12 egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. In another bowl, beat the 7 egg yolks and mix with the creamed mixture.

  5. Chop the soft almonds finely.

  6. In a new bowl, beat 1 pint of sweet cream with 4 egg whites and 4 tablespoons of sugar until frothy.

Mix and bake

  1. Fold the almond mixture into the cream mixture, then add the chopped almonds.

  2. Combine everything gently and pour into a prepared cake pan.

  3. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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 + 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 + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating the flour and shortening the structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and lightens the batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter while adding fat and tenderness.
Soft almonds
Contribute nutty flavor and moisture, giving the cake its almond character.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the crumb tender after baking.

The step that matters

Combine everything gently. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air whipped into the egg whites. Overmixing deflates the batter, which leads to a denser, flatter cake.

“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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