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Dessert

Almond Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, egg whites, vanilla, blanched almonds, and almond cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Slowly add the sugar and mix until combined.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Sift in the flour mixed with baking powder gradually.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites and vanilla gently.

  6. Divide the batter between two cake pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake one cake plain and on the other, sprinkle with blanched almonds and powdered sugar.

  2. Once baked, spread almond cream between the layers.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped into the batter to add lift and a light, airy texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb and browning.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously knocks out the air whipped into the whites, so the cake rises less and turns dense. Fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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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