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 Cakes
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 dough
In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour until fine.
Add the ground almonds and castor sugar to the mixture.
Beat the eggs and add them along with the lemon essence and salt to the bowl.
Form the mixture into a smooth paste.
Shape and bake
On a floured surface, roll out the paste to ½ inch thickness.
Cut into shapes using a cookie cutter and place on a baking sheet.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 30 minutes until golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack or basket.
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.
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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour in the crumb.
- Ground almonds
- Add moisture, nutty flavour and a tender, slightly dense texture.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add moisture and richness to the cakes.
The step that matters
Baking until golden brown. Baking time is short and the cakes can go from golden to dry or over-browned quickly. Watching colour rather than only the clock helps keep them tender while fully set.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, almond, sugar, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, almond, sugar, 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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