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Dessert

Alymond Cream Cake

A sponge cake layered with almond cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Alymond 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.

Make the cake layers

  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 together four or five times, then gently fold into the egg whites along with the cream of tartar.

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

Make the almond cream

  1. Heat the sweet cream or milk in a saucepan for the cream.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks, powdered sugar, and cornstarch dissolved in a little milk.

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

  4. Blanch and finely chop the almonds, then stir them into the cream.

Assemble

  1. Assemble the cake layers with the almond cream filling.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the cake its light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the set structure that holds the whipped foam once baked.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they cook, giving the filling its body and richness.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a fine texture to the cream filling.
Sweet cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling that thickens into a cream.

The step that matters

Cook the yolk mixture into the cream until thickened. Egg yolks set when heated, but if the cream is overheated or boiled too hard after adding them, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Cooking gently while stirring keeps the filling smooth.

“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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