Why it works: Almond and flour 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 ↓
Venetian Cake, or Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Pound the blanched and bitter almonds into a paste with a few drops of egg white or orange flower water.
Mix the almond paste with the flour and butter until crumbly.
Add the powdered sugar and lemon zest, then mix in the egg yolks to form a dough.
Roll the dough to less than ¼ inch thick and cut into 6 or 7 equal portions.
Bake and assemble
Place the pieces on lightly floured or buttered baking sheets and bake until firm and pale brown.
If needed, stack the warm cakes and place a weight on top to flatten them.
Once cooled, spread each layer with different preserves and stack them to form a cake.
Optionally, ice the top and decorate with pistachio nuts or colored sugar.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter 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
- Blanched and bitter almonds
- Provide the nutty flavour and the base paste that gives the dough its body.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides structure so the dough holds its shape when rolled and cut.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat for a tender, crumbly texture as it is worked into the flour.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the dough and dissolves smoothly into the fat for a fine crumb.
- Egg yolks
- Bind the dough together and add richness and color.
- Preserves
- Add sweetness and moisture between the layers, softening the firm cakes.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough thin. Rolling the dough to less than ¼ inch thick keeps the cakes thin and crisp rather than dense. Uneven thickness makes some pieces bake faster and brown unevenly, so equal portions matter.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, flour, butter, sugar, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, flour, butter, 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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