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Dessert

Nut Cake

A moist cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, buttermilk, flour, baking soda, molasses, raisins, hickory nuts, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Nut Cake

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

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

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

  2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs and buttermilk, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

Make and bake the cake

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  2. Fold in the molasses, raisins, hickory nuts, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick 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.

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.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, giving the cake a tender, light crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that works with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that makes the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Mixing only until just combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing makes the cake tough.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, buttermilk, flour, molasses, raisin. 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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