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Dessert

Genoese Cakes

A sweet cake made from roasted filberts mixed with powdered sugar, molded into small shapes and topped with whipped cream and strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Filbert and sugar work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Genoese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the nuts

  1. Scald the filberts, remove the skins, and split each kernel into four lengthwise pieces.

  2. Dry the nuts on a baking sheet in the oven.

Make the nougat

  1. Stir the powdered sugar in a boiler over heat until ready.

  2. Mix the dried nuts into the sugar.

  3. Prepare half a dozen small charlotte molds, greasing them inside.

  4. Fill each mold with the nougat, using a stick to press it into the sides.

  5. Trim any nougat that rises above the edge of the molds.

  6. Turn the nougats out onto a baking sheet.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, fill each nougat with whipped cream flavored with vanilla or maraschino, and top with strawberries.

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. Filbert + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Filberts
Provide the main nut texture and flavor that give the nougat its body and crunch.
Powdered sugar
Melts and sets into the sweet binding that holds the nuts together as nougat.

The step that matters

Stir the powdered sugar in a boiler over heat until ready. Sugar burns quickly and can crystallize if overheated or stirred unevenly, which spoils the smooth texture and flavor of the nougat. Heat it gently and watch it closely.

“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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