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Hickory-nut Cake

A layered cake with hickory nuts, egg white icing, and hickory nut custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Hickory-nut Cake

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 ↓

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.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Chop the hickory nuts into small pieces.

  5. Mix the creamed sugar and butter with the flour, sweet milk, baking powder, and chopped nuts. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.

Ice and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Spread icing on the first layer of the cake and decorate with whole hickory nut kernels. Add the second layer and repeat the icing and decoration.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, mix the cornstarch with a little milk and add to the boiling milk. Stir in the beaten eggs, sugar, and finely chopped hickory nuts. Remove from heat when thickened and use while warm between the cake layers.

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

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nuts + corntop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, giving the cake structure and a light, airy crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the cake crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, set texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake, so fold gently with a spatula.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, corn, 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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