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Dessert

Broda Cake

A ginger and almond cake with semolina and preserved ginger, baked and layered with almond paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Semolina and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Broda Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and icing sugar together.

  2. Add the ground almonds and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the egg yolks one at a time without beating.

  4. Add a little semolina alternately with the flour.

  5. Stir in the preserved ginger, baking powder, and almond essence.

  6. Gently fold in the egg whites.

  7. Pour the batter into a prepared cake tin and bake until golden.

Finish and serve

  1. Once baked, cut the cake carefully in half.

  2. Spread almond paste between the two layers and ice the top.

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. Semolina + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Almond + semolinatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to form a tender, structured base for the batter.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whites add lift when folded in.
Ground almonds
Add moisture and a dense, tender crumb with rich nutty flavour.
Semolina
Gives the cake a slightly firm, granular texture alongside the flour.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the egg whites. Whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Overmixing or beating them back into the batter deflates the foam, leaving a dense, heavy cake.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, almond, semolina, flour, egg, syrup):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, almond, semolina, flour, egg, syrup. 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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