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Almond Sponge Cakes

A light almond cake made with egg yolks, egg whites, saccharine, water, and almond flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour 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 Sponge Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the saccharine tablets in the water.

  2. Cream the egg yolks with a wooden spoon until slightly thick.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the yolks.

  4. Add the dissolved saccharine and almond flour, stirring gently.

Bake

  1. Place small heaps the size of walnuts on a lightly buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and gives the sponge its light structure.
Egg yolks
They add richness and body, and help bind the batter together.
Almond flour
It gives the cake its body and a nutty flavour without much gluten structure.
Saccharine
It provides the sweetness in place of sugar.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg whites into the yolks. Whites hold air only when they are whipped stiff, and folding gently keeps that air in the batter. Vigorous stirring deflates it, so the cake bakes up flatter and denser.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour. 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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