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Dessert

Almond Cream Cake

A layered cake with almond‑flavored cream filling and almond garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Almond Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff peaks form.

  3. Sift the powdered sugar and flour with the cream of tartar, then gently fold into the egg whites.

  4. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the sweet cream in a saucepan for the filling.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks, powdered sugar, and cornstarch with a little milk until smooth.

  3. Once the cream is boiling, stir in the yolk mixture and cook until thickened.

  4. Fold in the chopped almonds into the cream filling.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Assemble the cake while the icing is soft, layering the cream filling between the cake layers.

  2. Decorate the top with split almonds.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 to stiff peaks, they give the sponge its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the baked batter into a firm crumb.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream filling as they cook, giving it a smooth, set texture.
Sweet cream
Forms the base of the filling, adding richness and a creamy body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the yolk mixture so the filling sets smoothly when cooked.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a crunchy texture to the filling and the decoration.

The step that matters

Folding the flour into the egg whites. Gentle folding preserves the air whipped into the egg whites. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense, flat cake instead of a light one.

“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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