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Dessert

Hickory-nut Cake

A cake made with egg whites, sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, baking powder, and hickory nut meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Hickory-nut Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hickory-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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the sweet milk to the butter mixture and mix well.

  3. Combine the flour, corn starch, and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Stir in the hickory nut meats last.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30‑40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the cake lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and add sweetness and gentle browning.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once combined with the liquid and eggs.
Corn starch
Softens the flour's gluten, producing a finer, more tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise during baking.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Folding keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites intact. Vigorous stirring deflates them, which leads to a denser, flatter cake.

“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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