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Dessert

Nut Layer Cake

A layered cake made with a nut filling and a sweet batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 Layer 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.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add cold water and mix well.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  5. Beat until smooth, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, heat the sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks (or whole egg) with sugar and butter.

  3. Dissolve the flour in a little milk, then add to the hot milk mixture.

  4. Cook until thickened, then stir in the chopped nuts.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Egg whites add lift and airy structure to the cake batter, while yolks or a whole egg add richness and set the filling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake crumb together and thickens the filling once cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake batter rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in both the cake and the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and filling and helps the batter cream to a light texture.
Sweet milk
Forms the base of the filling, which thickens as it cooks with the flour.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thickened. Flour thickens only when heated enough for its starch to swell in liquid. Stopping too early leaves the filling runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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