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Dessert

Walnut Cake

A baked cake made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, walnuts, lemon rind, and topped with a walnut icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 together the butter and sugar.

  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 into neat squares.

  2. For icing, combine 1/2 pound sugar and 2 tablespoons cold water in a saucepan and warm slightly.

  3. Stir in 1 ounce 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and trapping air when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when creamed, helps trap air for a lighter texture.
Grated walnut
Adds nutty flavor and a moist, slightly dense texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Allow the icing to set before adding walnut halves. Icing made from sugar and water firms as it cools and sets. Placing walnut halves too early can sink them or let them slide off the glossy surface.

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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