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Dessert

New York Passover Cake

A lemon matzo cake made with eggs, sugar, matzo meal, potato flour, and lemon rind, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,458 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

New York Passover Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Grease a springform or cake pan with olive oil or butter.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until very light.

  2. Add the lemon rind and juice, then mix in the matzo meal and potato flour alternately, ensuring to mix well after each addition.

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

  4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the preheated oven.

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. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Eggs
Whipped whites give the cake its light, airy structure, while yolks add richness and color.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps beat the yolks to a light, stable foam.
Matzo meal
Provides the light starch and body that holds the cake together without wheat flour.
Potato flour
Adds tenderness and binding in place of wheat flour, keeping the crumb soft.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the cake rises and stays light instead of deflating.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, lemon, olive. 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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