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Dessert

Genoese Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, eggs, butter, orange flower water, brandy, and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Genoese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a basin.

  2. Add orange flower water and brandy, then mix well.

  3. Break and beat the eggs one by one, adding them to the mixture.

  4. Melt the butter and add it to the paste.

  5. Pour the well-mixed batter into a buttered tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until golden.

  2. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + eggtop 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
Beaten in one by one, they trap air and set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Butter
Melted into the batter, it adds richness and tenderness and helps the cake brown.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as the eggs and butter set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the cake bakes.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs one by one. Adding eggs gradually lets each one fully emulsify into the batter. Adding them too fast can cause the mixture to separate and lose the air needed for a light crumb.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, brandy, egg, butter. 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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