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 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the lightly beaten eggs and mix well.
Stir in the sweet milk.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and fold into the mixture.
Gently mix in the chopped walnuts.
Bake and assemble
Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.
Once cooled, fill the layers with tart jelly.
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.
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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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,035 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure, richness and moisture as the cake sets.
- Flour
- Forms the cake's structure once heated, setting the crumb as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
- Walnut meats
- Add texture, a nutty flavor and some richness to the crumb.
The step that matters
Folding in the flour and baking powder. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten and toughens the cake, and deflates the air the creamed butter and sugar trapped. Fold gently and only until no dry flour shows.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, meat):
- Almondfits better
- Walnutthe original
- Pecansfits about as well
- Chestnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, meat. 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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