Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Cake

A baked almond cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, almonds, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Cake

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. Blanch and finely chop the almonds.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then add the sugar and mix well.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix until combined.

  3. Stir in the chopped almonds.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin lined with parchment paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ hours.

  3. Reserve 1 tablespoon of almonds to sprinkle on top of the cake when it is just set.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a moist, slightly dense texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Sprinkling the reserved almonds. Add them only when the cake is just set. Added to the fluid batter, they sink; once the surface has firmed, they stay on top.

“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.

More almond cake recipes

Coconut 13Filling 7Jordan 7Lemon 7Currant 6French 5 See all 358 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesAlmond Paste TartletsAlmond Paste Tartlets10 recipes