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Dessert

Walnut Cake

A baked walnut cake made with butter, sugar, baking powder, walnuts, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,832 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the baking powder and mix well.

  3. Fold in the walnut kernels.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Gently fold the egg whites into the walnut mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a small-sized pan, similar to an almond sponge cake.

  2. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Walnut + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creams with butter for a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add air and structure for a light cake.
Walnut kernels
Add texture, nutty flavor, and fat that keeps the crumb moist.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the walnut mixture.. Whipped egg whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring vigorously or overmixing knocks that air out, leaving a dense result.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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