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Dessert

Almond Cake

A cake made with ground almonds, sugar, flour, eggs, and lemon zest, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Almond Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Combine ground almonds, sifted sugar, and egg yolks in a pan.

  2. Mix the mixture until creamy.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Fold the beaten whites into the almond mixture.

  5. Gently fold in the flour until just combined.

Prepare the tin and bake

  1. Grease a cake tin with almond oil.

  2. Sprinkle a little sugar on the greased tin.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

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. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg 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

Ground almonds
Provide the bulk and moist, tender crumb of the cake.
Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks lift the batter, while yolks add richness and set the structure.
Flour
Gives the cake structure as it sets during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the batter become creamy and tender.
Lemon zest
Adds a bright citrus aroma to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. The whites hold air that makes the cake rise. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring vigorously would deflate the batter and produce a dense cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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