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Dessert

Genoa Cake

A rich cake made with egg yolks, sugar, almonds, flour, butter, currants, candied orange peel, and topped with sweet almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Genoa Cake

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 ↓

Genoa 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 sponge

  1. Combine the yolks of 25 eggs, 2½ cups caster sugar, and 5 tablespoons ground almonds in a bowl. Beat until very light.

  2. Gently fold in the well-whisked whites of 8 eggs and 6 ounces sifted flour.

  3. Butter a square baking tin, pour in the batter, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked.

  4. Turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool before cutting into small squares or diamond shapes.

Make the fruit cake

  1. Warm 1 pound butter, beat it to a cream, and gradually add 1 pound caster sugar.

  2. Mix in 25 eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift in 1½ pounds flour and mix well.

  3. Add 1 pound currants and ½ pound chopped candied orange peel, then pour into a buttered square tin.

  4. Top with chopped sweet almonds and bake at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Whisked whites and beaten yolks trap air, giving the cake its light structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb to the fruit cake.
Flour
Sets the batter's structure as it bakes, holding the cake together.
Caster sugar
Beaten with butter or yolks, it helps create a light, aerated batter.
Ground almonds
Add moisture and a nutty flavour, keeping the sponge tender.
Currants
Add chewy texture and sweetness spread through the fruit cake.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whisked egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites. Stirring hard knocks that air out, and the cake rises less and turns out denser.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, almond, flour, butter, orange. 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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