Name: Nut Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup butter, softened; 1 cup sugar; 3 large eggs, well beaten; 2 cups all-purpose flour; ½ cup milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 cup chopped nuts; 1 teaspoon flavoring (such as vanilla or almond)

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Nut Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, milk, baking powder, nuts, and flavoring.
Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture all at once and beat constantly for five minutes.
Once cooled, cover the cake with boiled icing.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together638 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the nuts

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Hazelnutfits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.