Why it works: Flour and butternut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 37 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
Melt the brown butter and mix it with the sweet milk.
Combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in another bowl.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, alternating with the butter and milk mixture.
Fold in the butternut meats.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
-
Flour + butternuttop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together37 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when beaten with the eggs.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
- Brown butter
- Adds fat, moisture, and a nutty aroma to the cake.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so the baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients. Alternating dry ingredients with the liquid mixture keeps the batter smooth and emulsified. Adding everything at once can overmix the flour, developing gluten and producing a tough, dense cake.
Swap the butternut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream, meat):
- Almondfits better
- Walnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Butternutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream, meat. 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
You might also like
Delicate Cake246 recipes
Boiled Frosting69 recipes
Citron Cake68 recipes
Scotch Cake63 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.