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Dessert

Delicate Cake

A light almond-flavored cake made with egg whites, butter, flour, powdered sugar, and bitter almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Delicate Cake

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 ↓

Delicate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Grease a pan and line the bottom with greased light brown paper.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter until light.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and beat well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Add the egg whites alternately with the flour to the butter mixture.

  5. Flavor with 2-3 drops of bitter almond extract.

  6. Let the batter rise for 1 hour.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lift and an airy crumb to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Stiff egg whites trap air that expands in the oven and gives the cake its lift. Under-whipped whites collapse, and over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy, so both can leave a dense result.

“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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