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Dessert

Ratafia Calces

A sweet almond cake made with sweet and bitter almonds, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Ratafia Calces

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds in orange, rose, or clear water to prevent oiling.

  2. Finely grind the blanched almonds.

  3. Pound and sift the fine sugar.

  4. Mix the sugar with the ground almonds.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the almond and sugar mixture.

  3. Place the mixture in a preserving pan over moderate heat.

  4. Stir the mixture continuously until it is warm.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the mixture into small rolls.

  2. Cut the rolls into thin cakes.

  3. Dust your hands with flour.

  4. Shake flour over the cakes.

  5. Lightly tap each cake with your finger.

  6. Place the cakes on sugar paper.

  7. Sprinkle a little fine sugar over the cakes.

  8. Bake the cakes in a slow oven.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main ground almond body and flavor of the cakes.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, characteristic almond aroma to the cakes.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown as they bake.
Egg whites
Whipped to add lightness and help bind the almond and sugar mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture over moderate heat until warm. Heating must stay gentle and constant while stirring, so the egg whites set slightly and the mixture thickens without cooking into lumps or drying out before shaping.

“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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