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Dessert

Walnut Farina Cake

A walnut cake made with semolina, eggs, sugar, and baking powder, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Walnut Farina 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 the batter

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

  2. Beat the yolks of 6 eggs with ¾ cup sugar until well combined.

  3. Mix in ½ cup chopped walnut meats and ½ cup Farina sifted with 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  4. Gently fold in the 6 beaten egg whites until well combined.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into two greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes with whipped cream in between.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air that lifts and lightens the cake's structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter into a tender crumb.
Farina
Semolina flour provides the main starch and body that sets the cake's crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the yolks whip to a smooth, stable mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring them vigorously knocks out that air and makes the cake dense, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, meat, cream. 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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