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Dessert

Hickory Nut Cake

A baked cake made with butter, flour, sugar, egg whites, water, hickory nuts, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hickory 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the water and flour, stirring until smooth.

  3. Fold in half of the beaten egg whites, then add the hickory nuts.

  4. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites and the baking powder.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into square, flat pans lined with greased paper, filling them to a depth of three inches.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb as it is creamed with sugar.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air and help the cake rise and set with a light texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, creamy base when beaten with butter.
Hickory nut kernels
Add nutty flavor and a bit of texture throughout the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg whites. Stirring hard would deflate the batter, leading to a denser, flatter cake.

“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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