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Dessert

Almond Short Cake

A sweet almond cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, almonds, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Short 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.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the baking powder, chopped almonds, and almond extract.

  5. Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into small squares or diamonds.

  2. Pinch the edges of each piece and place a piece of peel on top.

  3. Prick each piece evenly with a fork.

  4. Bake on parchment paper until golden brown.

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. 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness and richness.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to aid aeration and add sweetness and browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough to give a lighter, more open crumb.
Chopped almonds
Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the shortcake.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the dough into a stiff, cuttable form.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a stiff dough. Adding too much flour at once or overworking the dough develops gluten and makes the shortcake tough. Add flour gradually and stop once the dough holds together.

“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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