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Dessert

Archangel Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with butter, sugar, flour, egg whites, and flavored with lemon or bitter almond extract and rose water.

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

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Archangel Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sifted flour.

  4. Flavor with lemon extract or bitter almond extract and rose water.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into layers.

  2. Bake for 6 to 10 minutes, or bake in a turk's-head tin.

  3. For a loaf cake, bake for about 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, giving the cake lift and a light, open crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sifted flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and add sweetness and gentle browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously or overmixing knocks that air out, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently until just combined.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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