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 ↓
Walnut 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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugar until creamy.
Add the egg yolks and milk, and mix well.
Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.
Fold in the chopped walnuts and then the beaten egg whites.
Bake and frost
Pour the batter into deep cake pans and bake until golden.
For frosting, mix the confectioners' sugar, butter, and vanilla extract.
Add hot milk until the frosting is spreadable.
Cut the cake into squares and place a walnut on each square.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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 sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture to the crumb.
- Egg whites
- Beaten and folded in to lighten the batter and give the cake its rise and airy structure.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, moisture and fat, and help bind the batter.
- Flour
- Forms the cake's structure once mixed with liquid and eggs.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise and become light.
- Walnuts
- Add crunch, nutty flavor and fat, and moisture to the crumb.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only if they are beaten to a stable foam and folded gently. Stirring or deflating them removes that air, so the cake rises less and turns dense.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Milletfits about as well
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, 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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