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Dessert

Peanut Cake

A baked peanut cake topped with water icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Peanut 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and gradually add the sugar until well combined.

  2. Mix in the roasted peanuts and ammonia.

  3. Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once baked, top with water icing.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Peanut + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Peanut + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Beaten with sugar, they trap air and add structure and moisture to the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and moist.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Roasted peanuts
Add nutty flavor and a bit of texture to the crumb.
Ammonia
Releases gas as it heats, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar until well combined. Beating eggs with sugar traps air bubbles in the batter. These bubbles expand in the oven and give the cake its lift, so under-beating can leave a dense result.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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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