Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Almond Cake

A light, fluffy cake flavored with almond extract, baked until golden.

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

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 mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk gradually, mixing well.

  4. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add to the mixture.

  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
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks and folded in, they add lift and an airy structure to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Sugar
Helps cream with the butter for air and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously or letting them deflate before baking leads to a dense, flat cake, so fold gently until just combined.

“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