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Dessert

Almond Tea-cakes

Almond tea cakes are sweet baked cakes made with flour, butter, sugar, almonds, and eggs, topped with ground almonds and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Tea-cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat for a few minutes.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the melted butter with ½ pound of sugar, chopped almonds, and eggs.

  2. Gradually add the remaining 3 ounces of flour to the mixture.

  3. Form the dough into thin cakes and place them on a baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle ground almonds and sugar on top of each cake.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the thin cakes together while baking.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the cakes a tender texture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown during baking.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavor and body to the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add moisture and structure.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. The cakes are thin, so they can dry out or over-brown quickly. Watching for an even golden color rather than relying only on time helps keep them tender and evenly baked.

“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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