Name: Nut Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup chopped nuts (floured); powdered sugar; white or chocolate frosting; whole nut meats; maple icing

Why it works: Nuts and chocolate work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 440 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Nut Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Add ½ cup of floured chopped nuts to the 'Rocky Mountain' cake batter.
Sprinkle a layer of chopped nuts and a little powdered sugar over the top before baking.
Alternatively, frost the cake with white or chocolate frosting and decorate with whole nut meats.
For a delicious variation, use maple icing on the cake.

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.

Nuts + chocolatetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together440 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Nuts + meattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together111 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Chocolate + meattop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together209 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Nuts + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,228 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).