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Dessert

Walnut Cake

A baked walnut cake with a walnut icing and walnut topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Walnut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Beat the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Stir in the flour, grated walnut, baking powder, and lemon rind; mix well.

  5. Pour the batter into a shallow mold lined with buttered paper.

  6. Bake for 45 minutes.

Ice and finish

  1. Cool the cake for a few minutes, then cut it into neat squares.

  2. For the icing, combine ½ pound of sugar and 2 tablespoons of cold water in a saucepan and warm slightly.

  3. Stir in 1 ounce of finely grated walnut, then pour over each square of cake.

  4. Allow the icing to set, then place half a shelled walnut on top of each square.

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. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 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. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Walnut
Adds nutty flavor and body to the cake and icing.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a shallow mold. Batter spread shallow bakes evenly and heats through, so the cake sets without a raw center. A deep pan can leave the middle underbaked while the edges over-brown.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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