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Dessert

Crumb and Farina Cake

A layered cake made with eggs, breadcrumbs, farina, walnuts, sugar, and baking powder, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Crumb and Farina Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together for five minutes.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the walnuts, bread crumbs, farina, and baking powder.

  3. Add the walnut mixture to the yolk and sugar mixture.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into layers and bake until golden.

  2. Serve with whipped cream between the layers and on top.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + walnuttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together714 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 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
Provide structure and moisture, and the whipped whites lift the batter as it bakes.
Walnut meats
Add body, richness and a nutty flavour to the crumb.
Bread crumbs
Add light structure and absorb moisture so the batter holds together.
Farina
Adds body and a slightly tender, fine texture to the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and stays light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the yolks thicken and the crust brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Fold gently so the air trapped in the whites is not knocked out. That air is what lifts the batter, so overmixing leads to a dense cake.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Peasfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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