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 ↓
Hickory 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Make the batter
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.
Fold in the raisins and chopped hickory nuts.
Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
Fold the beaten eggs into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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 + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together490 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Provides the main structure once its proteins set during baking.
- Eggs
- Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter together.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to lift the batter as it bakes.
The step that matters
Adding the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Stirring only until just combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough. Overmixing toughens the crumb.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream, raisin, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream, raisin, 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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