Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Cake

A baked almond cake topped with a marshmallow icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Almond Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cake

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg whites.

  3. Mix in the baking powder and flour.

  4. Stir in the milk and almond extract.

  5. Pour the batter into a loaf pan or layer pans.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Make the icing

  1. Place marshmallows in a double boiler.

  2. Steam until very soft.

  3. Boil the sugar and water until it spins a thread.

  4. Beat in the egg whites.

  5. Add the melted marshmallows.

  6. Add the vinegar.

  7. Beat until smooth and thick.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

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

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

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter, and help make the icing light and foamy.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and become light.
Marshmallows
Melt into the icing, adding sweetness, body and a soft, glossy texture.

The step that matters

Beat until smooth and thick. The icing must be beaten long enough to cool and thicken into a stable, spreadable texture. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while the sugar syrup must reach the thread stage first so the icing sets properly.

“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.

More almond cake recipes

Coconut 13Filling 7Jordan 7Lemon 7Currant 6French 5 See all 358 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesAlmond Paste TartletsAlmond Paste Tartlets10 recipes