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Dessert

Nut Pie

Nut Pie is a baked dessert made with walnuts, dates, eggs, flour, powdered sugar, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and dates work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nut Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, dates, and walnuts.

  3. In another bowl, beat the eggs separately.

Make the batter

  1. Add the yolks to the powdered sugar, then fold in the egg whites.

  2. Combine the egg mixture with the flour, baking powder, walnuts, and dates.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie tin and bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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 + datestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Dates + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides structure so the pie holds together once the egg and nut mixture sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the pie rise and become lighter in texture.
Walnuts
Add chewy, crunchy texture and a toasty, nutty flavour throughout the pie.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and moisture, giving the pie a soft, chewy body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves smoothly, contributing to a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air that gives the pie lift. Stirring or beating them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a dense result. Fold gently until just combined.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Mixed nutsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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