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Dessert

Almond Cream Cake

A layered cake with almond-flavored cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Cream Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Sift the powdered sugar and flour with the cream of tartar, then gently fold into the egg whites.

  4. Pour the batter into jelly pans and bake until golden.

Make the almond cream

  1. For the cream, heat the sweet cream in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in a little milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and powdered sugar together, then mix in the cornstarch mixture.

  4. Once the cream is boiling, stir in the egg mixture and cook until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and fold in the chopped almonds.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Assemble the cake by layering the cream between the cake layers while the icing is still soft.

  2. Decorate the top with the split almonds.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Whipped to stiff peaks to give the batter its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream when gently cooked and add richness and colour.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream by gelatinizing when heated with the liquid.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a textured body to the cream.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture into the cream. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the mixture gets too hot or is cooked too fast it can curdle or scramble. Stirring constantly while cooking until thickened keeps it smooth.

“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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