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 ↓
Hickory-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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Beat the egg whites lightly and add them to the mixture.
Stir in the milk, flour, and corn starch.
Dredge the hickory nuts in flour and fold them into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake 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.
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.
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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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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Nuts + corntop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together104 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
- Whites of 4 eggs
- Add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets.
- Corn starch
- Softens the crumb, giving the cake a finer, more tender texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
- Shelled hickory nuts
- Add nutty flavour and texture to the cake.
The step that matters
Dredge the hickory nuts in flour and fold them into the batter. Flour-coated nuts are less likely to sink to the bottom of the batter. Folding gently keeps the air from the egg whites, so the cake rises evenly instead of deflating.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, corn, milk, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Milletfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, corn, milk, 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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