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Dessert

Almond Cake

A sweet cake with almond filling, baked from a batter of butter, sugar, milk, flour, cornstarch, eggs, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond 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.

Make the cake batter

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

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

  3. Gradually add the milk to the butter mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

  6. Gently fold in the egg whites.

  7. Pour the batter into jelly tins.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake until golden.

  2. For the filling, blanch the almonds.

  3. Finely pound the blanched almonds.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg whites and yolks together lightly.

  5. Add 1½ cups sugar and the pounded almonds to the egg mixture.

  6. Stir in the vanilla.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cake once it sets in the oven.
Egg whites
Whipped air and protein give the batter lift and a light, set structure.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the egg whites and helps the leavening react for a lighter crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise and brown.
Almonds
Pounded into the filling, adding fat, body and nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the egg whites. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air whipped into the egg whites, so the cake rises light instead of dense and heavy.

“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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