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Dessert

Nut Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, milk, pastry flour, baking powder, egg whites, vanilla, and finely chopped nuts, topped with a sugar syrup filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Nut Cake

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

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

  5. Fold in the egg whites and vanilla, then add the nuts.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased baking sheet or two-layer pans.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine 1 cup sugar and ⅓ cup water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook without stirring until the syrup runs off the spoon in a thin stream.

  3. Slowly pour the syrup over the beaten egg white, beating until cool.

  4. Spread the filling quickly over the cake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

Pastry flour
Provides the starch structure that sets the cake crumb once baked.
Eggs (whites)
Beaten whites trap air, giving the cake lift and a light, open texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the batter rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crust.
Nut meats
Add texture and a rich, toasted flavour to the crumb.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup without stirring. Stirring can cause sugar to crystallise, making the syrup grainy. Cooking it to a thin stream concentrates it to the right consistency for the egg whites.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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