Name: Nut Cakes
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; 2 eggs; 1 cup butter; 1 cup milk; 1 cup chopped raisins; 1 cup chopped walnuts; 2 cups flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Nut Cakes

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Stir in the milk, flour, and baking powder.
Fold in the raisins and walnuts.

Bake and finish

Pour the batter into tins and bake until golden.
Once cooled, frost with chocolate icing and top with half a walnut.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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).
Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together647 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
Walnuts: Add crunch and nutty flavour throughout the cake.

Swap the walnut

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Pistachiofits about as well
Walnutthe original

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