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Dessert

New York Cakes

A buttery cake with cherries, almonds, and brandy, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

New York Cakes

Ingredients

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

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and brandy together, then add to the butter mixture.

  4. Fold in the chopped cherries and almonds.

  5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the mixture.

  6. Add the flour and mix until well combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a flat tin or small fancy tins.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once cool, cover with water icing and decorate with cherries.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Whipped whites add lift, and the proteins set during baking to give structure.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps create a light, tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. The stiff whites trap air that gives the cake lift. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact, while vigorous stirring deflates the batter and leads to a dense cake.

“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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