Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Delight

A light almond meringue cake filled with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Almond Delight

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 meringue

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  3. Gently fold in the powdered sugar and chopped almonds.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered cake tin.

  5. Bake until golden brown.

Fill and serve

  1. Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form.

  2. Sweeten the cream with sugar and add flavoring.

  3. Split the baked meringue and fill with the whipped cream.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Provide body, a tender crumb and nutty flavor to the cake.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the cake its light structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and dissolves finely into the batter for a smooth texture.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness to the filling once whipped.
Sugar
Sweetens the whipped cream filling.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Stiff whites hold air bubbles that make the cake rise and stay light. Folding gently afterward keeps those bubbles from collapsing, so the cake does not turn dense.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Filbertfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, cream. 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.

You might also like

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