Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Plain 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the cold water.
Stir in the chopped nuts until evenly distributed.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-40 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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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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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).
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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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise.
The step that matters
Adding the dry ingredients alternately with the cold water. Mixing in flour in portions alongside the liquid keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which helps prevent a tough cake. Adding it all at once makes overmixing more likely.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, cream):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Macadamia nutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, cream. 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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