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Dessert

Burnt Almond Cake

A cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, almonds, and rosewater icing.

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 ↓

Burnt Almond Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Beat the eggs with the powdered sugar until it resembles a heavy batter.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour mixed with baking powder.

  3. Add the water.

  4. Bake in jelly tins.

Make the burnt almonds

  1. Scald the almonds by pouring boiling water over them.

  2. Remove the skins.

  3. Place the almonds on a pie plate and brown them slightly in the oven.

  4. Melt the white sugar in a kettle without adding water, stirring constantly.

  5. Stir the browned almonds into the melted sugar.

  6. Cool them on a platter.

Ice and decorate

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the pulverized sugar and flavor with rosewater.

  3. Spread the icing on the layers of the cake.

  4. Cover each layer with almonds.

  5. Frost the entire cake.

  6. Decorate with additional 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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light, structured crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once set by heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Almonds
Coated in caramel, they add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor.
White sugar
Melted to caramel, it gives the almonds their brittle, burnt coating and sweetness.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they form a light, airy foam that gives the icing volume.

The step that matters

Melt the white sugar in a kettle without adding water, stirring constantly. Sugar melted dry can scorch quickly from the bottom up. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so it caramelizes to an amber color without burning into bitter flavor.

“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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