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Dessert

Cream Almond Cake

A light, fluffy almond-flavored cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, egg whites, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, stirring until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

  6. Stir in the almond extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 tender texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lift and an airy structure to the cake.
Flour
Forms the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Creams with butter for a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Overmixing when folding deflates them, leading to a dense, flat cake.

“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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