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Dessert

Small Almond Cakes

Small almond cakes made with eggs, flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, topped with chopped almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Small Almond Cakes

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.

Prepare

  1. Weigh the flour to match the weight of 3 eggs.

  2. Weigh the butter and sugar to match the weight of 2 eggs each.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs to the mixture.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour and baking powder.

  4. Pour the batter into lined sandwich tins.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until almost done.

  2. Sprinkle chopped almonds on top and continue baking until fully cooked.

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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create air when creamed with butter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cakes rise and become lighter.

The step that matters

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Creaming works air into the butter and sugar, which gives the batter lift in the oven. Stopping too early leaves a dense cake, and the mixture should be creamy and smooth before the eggs go in.

“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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