Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Nut Layer 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and eggs, mixing well.
Stir in the baking powder and combine thoroughly.
Pour the batter into layer tins and bake until golden.
Make the filling
For the filling, boil the cream, sugar, and hickory-nut meats together until thick.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + meattop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, when boiled with cream, thickens the nut filling.
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender texture.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness to the batter as they set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, and thickens into the filling when boiled.
- Hickory-nut meats
- Provide nutty flavor and body to the boiled filling.
The step that matters
Boiling the filling until thick. The cream and sugar thicken as water evaporates and the sugar concentrates. Stopping too early leaves a runny filling, while overcooking can make it grainy or stiff once it cools.
“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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