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Dessert

Tranches a LA Neige

A French cake with butter, flour, almonds, vanilla, and meringue, topped with raspberry jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 950 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Tranches a LA Neige

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a flat baking tin.

Make the cake

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and ½ cup of sugar until smooth.

  2. Add the egg yolks, flour, ground almonds, and vanilla essence. Mix well.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven until golden.

Top and bake again

  1. Spread raspberry jam over the baked cake.

  2. Whip the remaining egg white until stiff. Mix in 1 oz. of sugar and lemon rind, then top the cake with this meringue mixture.

  3. Return to the oven until the meringue is lightly colored.

  4. Cut into squares or fingers. Serve hot or cold.

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. Raspberry + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raspberry + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Egg whites whipped for lift and structure; yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together once baked.
Ground almonds
Add moisture and a tender, slightly nutty texture to the crumb.
Raspberry jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the cake and meringue.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the batter and yields a dense cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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