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Dessert

Almond Cakes

A baked cake made with flour, sugar, eggs, butter, almonds, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

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. Grease and line oval tins with parchment paper.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter, sugar, and eggs together for 15 minutes.

  2. Sift in the flour, volatile salts, and baking powder.

  3. Add the ground and chopped almonds, mixing well.

  4. Add enough milk to make the mixture light.

Bake

  1. Divide the mixture into the tins, ensuring each cake weighs about 1 pound.

  2. Scatter chopped almonds on top.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for nearly an hour.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 richness as they set in the oven.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps hold air for a lighter crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Ground almonds
Add moisture, richness, and a nutty flavor to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Add enough milk to make the mixture light. Milk loosens the batter to a soft, spoonable consistency. Too little leaves it stiff and dense, while too much thins the batter and weakens the structure as it bakes.

“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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