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Dessert

Gugelhopfen — Savoy Cake

A yeasted cake made with flour, butter, eggs, milk, sugar, and topped with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Gugelhopfen — Savoy 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, butter, egg yolks, yeast, milk, and sugar.

  2. Stir the mixture for over 30 minutes in one direction.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold the stiff egg whites into the batter.

Prepare and rise

  1. Butter a cake pan.

  2. Sprinkle chopped almonds on the bottom of the pan.

  3. Pour the batter into the pan, filling it slightly more than half full.

  4. Let the batter rise until doubled in size.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  2. Turn out the cake.

  3. Sprinkle the cake with sugar.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and emulsifying power to the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and help the cake rise.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, making the batter light and airy.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding the stiff egg whites into the batter. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the cake dense instead of light.

“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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