Skip to main content
Dessert

Spanish Cakes

A sweet almond cake flavored with rose water, mountain wine, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Spanish Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove the yolks from the eggs and place them in a large bowl.

  2. Whisk the eggs until frothy.

  3. Grease a baking pan with butter.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually mix in the sugar, dried flour, and almond paste.

  2. Add the rose-water, mountain wine, and pounded cinnamon.

  3. Continue to whisk the mixture for 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pan and bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whisked eggs give the cakes structure and a light, airy body.
Double-refined sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps keep them tender and moist.
Dried flour
Provides the starch that sets the batter into a cake structure as it bakes.
Almonds
Add richness, body and nutty flavour, and contribute moisture to the batter.
Rose-water
Adds a delicate floral aroma to the cakes.

The step that matters

Bake in a cool oven until set. A low, gentle oven lets the eggs and starch set the batter evenly without over-browning or drying the outside before the centre firms.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes