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 ↓
Delicate 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 the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.
Fold and bake
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.
Finally, fold in the chopped hickory nuts.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 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.
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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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).
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Flour + buttertop 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).
Flour and butter 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure as its proteins set during baking.
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize it when creamed with butter.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts and lightens the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the beaten egg whites and works with baking soda to aid rising.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold the air that lightens the cake. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out air and makes the cake dense, so fold gently until just combined.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, cream, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, cream, egg. 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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