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 ↓
Venetian Cake, or Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Pound the blanched and bitter almonds to a perfect paste with a few drops of egg white or orange flower water.
Mix the almond paste with the flour and butter until crumbly.
Add the powdered sugar and lemon zest, then mix in the egg yolks to form a paste.
Roll the paste to less than ¼ inch thick and cut into 6 or 7 equal portions with a fluted cutter.
Bake and assemble
Place the portions on lightly floured or buttered baking sheets and bake until firm and crisp, about 20-25 minutes.
If needed, stack the warm cakes and place a light weight on top to flatten them.
Once cooled, spread each layer with different preserves and stack them to form a complete cake.
Optionally, ice the top and decorate with pistachio nuts, colored sugar, or almond-paste leaves.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Blanched jordan almonds
- Ground into a paste that forms the rich, nutty body of the cake.
- Bitter almonds
- Add a deeper, more aromatic almond flavor to the paste.
- All-purpose flour
- Gives the dough enough structure to roll out and cut into firm, crisp layers.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat that makes the cakes tender and crumbly when baked.
- Egg yolks
- Bind the dough into a paste and add richness.
The step that matters
Rolling the paste thin and even. Rolling the dough to less than ¼ inch keeps the layers thin enough to bake firm and crisp. Thick portions stay soft in the middle and bake unevenly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, flour, butter, sugar, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, flour, butter, sugar, 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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