Name: Nut Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 cup milk; 3 eggs; 1½ cups sugar; 1 cup nut meats (any preferred); flour (amount not specified); baking powder (amount not specified)

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 ↓

Nut Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake batter

Cream the butter and sugar until light and white.
Beat the eggs slightly and add them to the mixture.
Sift the flour with the baking powder.
Mix the sifted flour and baking powder with the milk and nut meats to form a firm batter.

Bake and finish

Bake in layers or as a solid cake.
Prepare boiled white icing.
Stir in chopped nut meats into the icing.
Spread the icing between the layers.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter: Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs: Add structure and richness to the batter as they set in the oven.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, airy texture when creamed with butter.
Nut meats: Add texture and flavor to both the batter and the icing.

“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.