Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.
Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until well combined.
Melt the butter and mix it with the sweet milk.
In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, alternating with the milk mixture.
Fold in the chopped hickory nuts and black walnuts.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.
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.
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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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Nuts + walnuttop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together284 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff foam, they give the cake its light, airy structure.
- Flour
- Forms the cake's main structure once its starches set in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and turn light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
- Hickory nuts
- Add nutty flavour and texture to the crumb.
The step that matters
Folding in the nuts and alternating the flour mixture. Gently folding preserves the air whipped into the egg whites; overmixing deflates the batter and yields a dense cake.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, walnut, meat):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Pecansfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, walnut, meat. 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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