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Cake Rissoles

Cake Rissole is a fried cake sandwich coated in almond paste, egg, breadcrumbs, served with apricot puree.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cake Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cakes

  1. Cut stale sponge cake into thin slices and then into cakes about 1½ to 2 inches in diameter.

  2. Cover each cake with almond paste and sandwich them together.

  3. Dip the sandwiches quickly into beaten egg and then into breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

Make the apricot puree

  1. For the apricot puree, press the apricot halves through a sieve into a saucepan.

  2. Add the apricot liquor and bring to a boil.

  3. Mix the arrowroot with a little cold water, then add to the saucepan and boil for 1 minute.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the wine.

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 + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Almond + apricottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apricot + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together173 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  5. Apricot + arrowroottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale sponge cake
Forms the base of each rissole, giving a soft, absorbent crumb inside.
Almond paste
Adds a dense, sweet, nutty layer between the cake pieces.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres and browns during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in hot lard.
Apricot halves
Provide fruit pulp that thickens and flavours the puree.
Arrowroot
Thickens the apricot puree to a glossy, smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Dip the sandwiches quickly into beaten egg and then into breadcrumbs. Brief dipping keeps the coating thin and even. Soaking lets the cake absorb too much egg and turn soggy, so the crumbs slide off in hot lard.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, egg, apricot, wine, sherry):

  1. Arrowrootthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, egg, apricot, wine, sherry. 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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