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Dessert

Fine Almond Cake

A cake made from sweet and bitter almonds, eggs, sugar, butter, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fine Almond Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Blanch, dry, and pound the sweet and bitter almonds to a paste, adding a few drops of cold water to prevent oiling.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until light.

  2. Gradually mix in the sugar and softened butter, beating slowly and thoroughly.

  3. Add the grated lemon rind and mix well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

  2. Ice the cake if desired.

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. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and the bulk of the cake's body once ground to a paste.
Eggs
Give structure and lift to the batter when beaten until light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when beaten with butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more aromatic almond flavour to the paste.

The step that matters

Adding water to the almond paste. Pounding oily almonds can release their oil and separate the paste. A few drops of cold water help keep the paste smooth and emulsified, so the batter blends evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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