Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Hickory Nut Drop Cakes
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, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and sour cream, mixing well.
Stir the baking soda into the sour cream.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.
Fold in the hickory nuts and flavoring.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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).
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Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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 trap air and add richness and tender texture.
- Sugar
- Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and browning to the cakes.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as the cakes set in the oven.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and acidity, and reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cakes as they bake.
The step that matters
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Adding flour gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the batter from overdeveloping gluten, which would make the cakes tough.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, cream, flour):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Macadamia nutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, cream, 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.
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