Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Myra's 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.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks and mix well.
Combine 1 cup of flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.
Add the flour and baking powder mixture to the batter alternately with the milk.
Stir in the remaining 2 cups of flour and the nuts.
Fold and bake
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.
Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Finish
Once cooled, cut into squares.
Place half a nut on each square.
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Butter
- Adds fat that gives richness and a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help bind the batter together.
- Flour
- Provides structure as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lifts the batter so the cake rises.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the cake.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Stir gently and only until combined. Vigorous mixing knocks out the air trapped in the whipped whites, so the cake rises less and bakes up denser.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Milletfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk. 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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