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Dessert

Almond Cake

A baked almond cake made with sweet and bitter almonds, orange flower water, sugar, brandy, eggs, and topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond 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

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Pound the blanched almonds to a paste with orange flower water.

  3. Mix in the sifted loaf sugar and a little brandy.

  4. Whisk the egg whites and yolks separately for 30 minutes.

  5. Add the yolks to the almond mixture.

Make the batter

  1. Gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a tin pan and dust the pan with bread crumbs.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan.

  3. Sprinkle the top with sifted loaf sugar.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 to 45 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.

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 + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the cake its light, airy structure, and yolks add richness.
Sweet almonds
Ground almonds form the body of the cake and add moisture and nutty flavour.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, aromatic almond flavour to the batter.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the cake brown on top.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped, so folding gently and without deflating them keeps the cake light instead of dense.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, brandy, egg, butter, bread. 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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