Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Cakes

Almond cakes made from ground almonds, butter, eggs, salt, and vinegar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the almond meal

  1. Finely grind the blanched almonds in a stone mortar.

  2. Place the almond meal in a linen bag and steep it in boiling water mixed with vinegar for 15 minutes to remove sugar.

Make the batter and bake

  1. Mix the almond paste with the butter and 2 whole eggs.

  2. Add the yolks of 3 eggs and salt, stirring well.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Pour the batter into greased molds and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Almond + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blanched sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the cakes, forming a tender, moist crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a soft, tender texture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites give lift and set the structure when baked.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. The whites trap air that makes the cakes rise. Stirring too hard or too long deflates the foam, so the cakes bake up dense instead of light.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, vinegar):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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 cakes recipes

Spanish 3Venetian 3 See all 51 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes