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Dessert

Rich Genoa Cake

A moist cake made with butter, flour, sugar, candied peel, nuts, sultanas, eggs, and lemon rind, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Rich Genoa 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the sugar and cream again until well combined.

  3. Beat the eggs and add them one at a time, mixing in the flour as you go.

  4. Add the blanched almonds, pistachio kernels, and candied peel cut into strips, along with the sultanas.

  5. Finally, mix in the baking powder until well combined.

Bake

  1. Bake in a shallow tin or sauté pan for 1½ hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Pistachio + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pistachio + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Flour + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set during baking, binding the fruit and nuts.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as the eggs and butter set.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise and lighten.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour that contrast with the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar until smooth traps air that expands in the oven. Under-creamed batter bakes denser, while the mixture should be well combined before the eggs are added so it does not curdle.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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