Why it works: Flour and butternut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 37 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Butternut 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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg white and butternuts.
Layer and bake
In a greased baking dish, layer the dough.
Add a layer of butternuts.
Top with more dough.
Bake until golden brown, about 30-40 minutes.
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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Flour + butternuttop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together37 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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 + 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).
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 give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
- Egg white
- Beaten to a froth, it traps air that helps the cake rise and lighten.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
- Butternuts
- Add bulk and moisture, and are layered through the dough.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg white. Egg white holds air only if it is beaten to a froth and folded gently. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, so the cake rises less and turns denser.
Swap the butternut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg, cream):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Butternutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, 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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