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Dessert

Little Spice Cakes

Small almond cakes flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon rind, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Little Spice Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Pound the almonds and mix with the sugar.

  2. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, grated lemon rind, egg yolks, and flour.

  3. Beat the mixture well and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to the thickness of two straws and cut into shapes.

  2. Bake on a floured baking sheet until golden.

Finish

  1. Once cooled, cover with icing.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Ground almonds add body and a tender, crumbly texture to the cakes.
Egg yolks
Yolks bind the dough and add richness, helping it set firm when baked.
Flour
Flour provides the structure that lets the cut shapes hold their form.
Castor sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown to a golden colour.
Lemon rind
Grated lemon rind adds a bright citrus aroma to the cakes.

The step that matters

Refrigerating the dough for 1 hour. The egg and almond dough is soft after mixing. Chilling firms it so it can be rolled to an even thickness and cut without spreading, which keeps the shapes sharp in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, sugar, egg. 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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