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. 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).
Make the batter
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the chopped nuts and mix well.
Stir in the milk and flour alternately, starting and ending with flour.
Fold in the egg whites gently.
Add the baking powder and mix until just combined.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake
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.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Nuts + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Fold in to add lift and set the structure as the cake bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the batter rises.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air bubbles that give the cake lift. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, so the cake may turn out dense and flat.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Milletfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, 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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