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Dessert

Apricot Cake

A moist cake made with apricot jam and chopped almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Apricot 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the margarine and sugar until light and creamy.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then beat the mixture thoroughly.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 1 hour.

Assemble and finish

  1. Once cooled, cut the cake into three layers.

  2. Spread apricot jam between each layer and on top.

  3. Sprinkle chopped almonds over the jam.

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. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Margarine
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and fat for richness.
Sugar
Creams with the fat to hold air and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and emulsifying fat that helps bind the batter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become airy.
Apricot jam
Adds fruit sweetness and acidity, and moisture between the layers.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture thoroughly after adding the flour. Mixing develops gluten in the flour, which gives structure. Overbeating can make the cake tough, while underbeating can leave pockets of dry flour and an uneven rise.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

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