Skip to main content
Dessert

Aunt Harriette's Nut Cake

A moist nut cake with raisins, currants, pecans, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Aunt Harriette's Nut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot 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. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and then the milk.

  3. Mix in 1½ teaspoons of baking powder with 1½ cups of flour and beat well.

  4. Toss the remaining 1½ cups of flour with the raisins, currants, and pecans.

  5. Add the spices and brandy to the egg mixture, then fold in the fruit and nut mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the cake.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit and nut mixture. Fold gently so the batter keeps the air created by creaming and the baking powder. Overmixing develops gluten and can make the cake dense and tough.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, raisin, pecans, allspice):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, raisin, pecans, allspice. 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.

More nut cake recipes

Hickory 164Chocolate 6Cocoa 6Sour Cream 5White 5Macaroons 3 See all 162 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes