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Dessert

Spanish Cream Cakes

A light, baked cake made with eggs, flour, milk, butter, sugar, almonds, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Spanish Cream Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the choux paste

  1. Combine milk, butter, 2 oz. sugar, and salt in an enamelled pan. Bring to a boil.

  2. Gradually stir in flour until it pulls away from the sides of the pan.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until cooled considerably.

  4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until shiny.

Shape and bake

  1. Using a dessert spoon, drop portions of the mixture onto a floured tray.

  2. Brush lightly with beaten egg.

  3. Spread the almond mixture over the top and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until pale brown.

Fill and serve

  1. Once cooled, open the cakes and fill with whipped cream or your choice of filling.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 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 paste and give the cakes structure and lift as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the starch framework that sets the paste into a hollow, airy shell.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the paste and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Provides liquid that turns to steam in the oven, helping the cakes puff.
Sweet almonds (ground)
Adds nutty flavour and toasty colour to the spread topping.

The step that matters

Cooling the paste before adding eggs. If the paste is still very hot, the eggs scramble rather than blend smoothly, and the batter loses the ability to hold its shape and rise. Cool it considerably first, then add eggs gradually until the mixture is glossy.

“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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