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Dessert

Nut Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, water, walnuts, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Nut Cake

Why it works: Walnut and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,147 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk and water until combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

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

  6. Fold in the walnut meats and vanilla.

Bake

  1. 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. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb when combined with liquid and eggs.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lightness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Walnut meats
Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and stirring only until just combined limits gluten development, keeping the cake tender rather than tough.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, meat, flour, cinnamon. 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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