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Dessert

Peach Cakes

A sweet cake made with eggs, powdered sugar, flour, peach jam, icing, and cochineal water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Peach Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately, whipping the whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Mix the beaten yolks with the powdered sugar and beat together for 15 minutes.

  3. Gradually add the flour, then fold in the egg whites and mix for 4-5 minutes.

Bake and assemble

  1. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto a buttered and floured baking sheet, shaping them like peach halves.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes until lightly browned.

  3. Remove from the oven, spread the flat side of each cake with peach jam, and sandwich them together.

  4. Cover the outside with a thin layer of icing and brush one side with cochineal water once dry.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + peachtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, giving the cakes their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Beaten with the yolks, it sweetens the batter and helps give it a smooth, tender body.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Peach jam
Adds sweetness and fruity moisture between the two cake halves.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that makes the cakes light. Stirring them vigorously or over-mixing after adding the flour knocks out that air and leaves dense cakes.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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.

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