Why it works: Flour and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 505 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Raspberry and Pistachio 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
Prepare a Madeira cake mixture using ½ pound of flour.
Divide the mixture in half.
To one half, add the chopped pistachios and green food coloring.
To the other half, add the raspberry jam.
Add red food coloring to the jam mixture.
Pass the jam mixture through a fine sieve.
Bake and serve
Butter a square shallow baking tin.
Line the tin with parchment paper.
Spoon the two mixtures into the tin in irregular lumps.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the cake is cooked through and the outside is not dark.
Once baked, cut the cake into slices for serving.
Ice the top of the cake.
Garnish with crystallized raspberries and shredded nuts.
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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Flour + pistachiotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together505 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pistachio + raspberrytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together62 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raspberry + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,308 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pistachio + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together587 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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
- Forms the structure of the sponge-like cake as it sets in the oven.
- Pistachios
- Add nutty flavor and a crunchy texture to the green portion of the cake.
- Raspberry jam
- Adds fruity sweetness and moisture to the pink portion of the cake.
The step that matters
Passing the jam mixture through a fine sieve. Seeds and fruit pieces left in the jam can create gritty streaks and uneven texture in the crumb. Sieving gives a smooth, even mixture that bakes into a cleaner, more uniform pink layer.
Swap the raspberry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pistachio, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Coconutfits better
- Raspberrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pistachio, butter. 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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