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Dessert

Cream Almond Cake

A light, fluffy almond cake baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cream Almond Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing well.

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

Mix and bake

  1. Fold the egg whites and almond extract into the batter.

  2. Pour the batter into a loaf pan.

  3. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the batter as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the batter. Stiff egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously or overmixing knocks that air out, leaving a dense cake. Fold gently, just until no streaks of white remain.

“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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