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Dessert

Little Almond Cakes

A small cake made from beaten egg whites, sweet and bitter almonds, powdered sugar, and ground rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Little Almond 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 the almond base

  1. Beat the egg whites with a fork until stiff.

  2. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds with a little sugar.

  3. Mix the almonds with the powdered sugar and rub through a sieve.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the almond mixture with the beaten egg whites and add the ground rice.

  2. Beat everything together until very light.

Bake

  1. Drop small round cakes onto a baking sheet.

  2. 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 + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they give the cakes their light, airy structure.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond body, flavor and fat that give the cakes their richness.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated almond aroma that stands out against the sweet almonds.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves finely into it for a smooth texture.
Ground rice
Adds starch and body, helping the cakes hold their shape while baking.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks. Under-beaten whites collapse in the batter, and the cakes bake flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, rice):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Milletfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rice. 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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