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Dessert

Sour Cream Nut Cake

A cake made with eggs, sour cream, sugar, flour, baking soda, vanilla, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sour Cream Nut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Break the eggs into a large cup and fill it with sour cream.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl and add baking soda and sugar.

  3. Beat well, then add enough flour to make a stiff batter and flavor with vanilla.

  4. Chop the walnuts, reserving some for the top, and stir them into the batter.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  2. Ice the top of the cake and decorate with the reserved walnut halves.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 as the cake sets in the oven.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a tender crumb, and its acidity works with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the stiff batter together as it bakes.
English walnuts
Add crunch and nutty flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to a stiff batter. Too much flour makes the cake dense and dry, while too little leaves it weak and collapsing. Mixing in flour only until the batter is stiff and smooth keeps the texture tender and the structure sound.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, flour, vanilla. 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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