Name: Small Almond Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pound butter; ½ pound finely powdered loaf sugar; ½ pound dried flour; ½ pound blanched sweet almonds, cut into thin bits; 1 egg, well beaten; 1 teaspoon rose water

Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Small Almond Cakes

Ingredients

1 pound butter
½ pound finely powdered loaf sugar
½ pound dried flour
½ pound blanched sweet almonds, cut into thin bits
1 egg, well beaten
1 teaspoon rose water

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Beat the butter until creamy.
Mix in the sugar, flour, almonds, beaten egg, and rose water until well combined.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto wafer paper or baking tins.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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.

Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,465 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Butter: Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cakes a tender, rich texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown as they bake.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they set.
Almonds: Add nutty flavour and a slightly firm, chewy texture to the batter.
Egg: Binds the mixture and adds moisture and structure as it sets.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Drop cakes are small and brown quickly, so they can over-darken or dry out if left too long. Pulling them once golden keeps them moist and evenly coloured.

“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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Small Almond Cakes