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Dessert

Archangel Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with egg whites, butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, optionally filled with almond paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Archangel Cake

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 ↓

Archangel Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

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

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into layers.

  2. Bake for 6 to 10 minutes.

  3. Alternatively, bake in a Turk's head tin for about 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + sugartop 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).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air that gives the cake its light, lifted structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's main structure.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps create a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold the air that makes the cake light. Stirring or deflating them too hard knocks out this air, so the cake bakes up dense and flat.

“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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