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Dessert

Nut Torte

A baked nut torte made with walnuts, dates, soda crackers, sugar, and eggs.

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 Torte

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).

Mix and bake

  1. Mix the sugar, egg yolks, walnuts, dates, and rolled soda crackers with baking powder in the order given.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites last and mix gently.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  4. Bake until set, then let cool.

Serve

  1. Break into small pieces and serve with sweetened 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. Sugar + datestop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + datestop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped air for lift, and yolks add richness and help bind the torte.
Walnuts
Provide the bulk and chewy texture of the torte.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the torte.
Soda crackers
Act as a binder that gives the torte structure in place of flour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the beaten eggs.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only if they are added last and mixed gently. Vigorous stirring knocks out the air, so the torte bakes up dense instead of light.

Swap the walnut

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

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

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