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Dessert

Chocolate Glace Cake

A light almond cake glazed with chocolate and apricot jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chocolate Glace Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond paste

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  2. Mix in ground almonds, icing sugar, almond essence, and orange-flower water.

  3. Color the mixture pale green with sap green.

  4. Warm the mixture gently in an enamelled saucepan.

Assemble the cake

  1. Spread apricot jam on one cake layer, then spread the almond paste on top.

  2. Add another layer of jam and place the second cake on top, pressing them together.

Glaze and set

  1. Melt powdered chocolate in hot water, then mix in icing sugar until smooth.

  2. Warm the glaze slightly and pour it over the cake quickly.

  3. Let the cake set before cutting it into fingers.

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. Almond + apricottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Orange + apricottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped to stiffness, it gives the almond paste lightness and body.
Ground almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavour of the almond paste.
Icing sugar
Adds sweetness and a smooth, fine texture to the paste and glaze.
Apricot jam
Adds moisture and sweetness, and helps the layers stick together.
Powdered chocolate
Gives the glaze its chocolate flavour and dark colour.

The step that matters

Pouring the glaze. The glaze should be only slightly warm and poured quickly; if it is too hot or too thin it runs off the cake, and if it cools too much it sets unevenly and clumps.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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