Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Cake

A baked almond cake with a buttery batter, brandy, and a topping of chopped almonds, sugar, and beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 batter

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

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, brandy, salt, flour, and pounded almonds; mix well.

  3. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold into the batter.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the batter into a greased tin pan about 1 inch thick.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly colored.

  3. In the last few minutes of baking, spread the chopped almonds, sugar, and beaten egg white over the top.

  4. Return the cake to the oven to finish baking.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and help the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Almonds
Add body, nutty flavor, and a finely textured crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Fold gently so the air in the whites stays in the batter. Stirring hard deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake with less rise.

“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.

More almond cake recipes

Coconut 13Filling 7Jordan 7Lemon 7Currant 6French 5 See all 358 →

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipes