Name: Nut Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup fine soft whole wheat bread crumbs; 1 cup mixed ground nuts (blanched almonds and English walnuts); 1 cup sweet milk; 1 beaten egg; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon sage

Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. 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.

Make the batter

Combine bread crumbs, ground nuts, sweet milk, beaten egg, salt, pepper, and sage in a bowl.
Let the mixture stand for a few minutes.

Bake

Stir the mixture again and pour it into a buttered baking dish.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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.

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.

Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together993 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Wheat + walnuttop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together246 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together394 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Wheat + almondtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Binds the crumbs and nuts together and helps the cake set when baked.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the milk and give the cake its body and soft texture.
Ground nuts: Provide the main bulk, richness and flavor of the cake.
Sweet milk: Moistens the crumbs and nuts so the mixture bakes tender.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, bread, almond, walnut, milk, egg, pepper):

Pistachiofits better
Flaxseedfits better
Chickpeafits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, bread, almond, walnut, milk, egg, pepper. 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.