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Dessert

Ratafia Cakes

A light almond cake made with bitter and sweet almonds, egg whites, and sugar, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ratafia 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a mortar, beat the 4 egg whites until fine.

  2. Stir in the 2¼ pounds of sugar gradually with the beaten egg whites.

  3. Add the 9 egg whites and mix until light.

Bake and finish

  1. Using a piping bag, pipe drops the size of a shilling onto cartridge paper.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until light brown.

  3. Remove from paper as soon as they are cool.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to form the light foam that gives the cakes their airy structure.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cakes and, with the whites, helps form a stable, glossy meringue-like batter.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and body of the cakes.
Blanched bitter almonds
Add a deeper, slightly bitter almond aroma that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Removing the cakes from the paper. Once cool, the baked cakes release cleanly; removing them while still warm can tear or crumble them, because the structure has not yet fully set.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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