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Dessert

Delicate Cake

A light almond-flavored cake made with butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, and bitter almond flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Delicate Cake

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 ↓

Delicate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

  3. Add the flour and mix well.

Fold in the egg whites

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

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  3. Add saleratus, cream of tartar, and bitter almond flavoring.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 25-30 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and lightens the cake.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness, richness and a fine crumb.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, giving the cake its structure.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps create a tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that stabilizes the whipped egg whites and reacts with saleratus.
Saleratus
Releases gas when combined with acid, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold the air that makes the cake light. Stirring vigorously or overmixing deflates the foam, so the cake bakes up dense.

“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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