Name: Chocolate Walnut Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 3 teaspoons baking powder; 2 eggs; 1 egg yolk; 1 scant cup milk; Vanilla flavor; ½ bar grated chocolate; ½ pound chopped walnuts

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 ↓

Chocolate Walnut 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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter in a bowl.
Add the baking powder, eggs, egg yolk, milk, and vanilla flavor; mix well.
Pour the batter into a square tin.
Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
For frosting, boil icing and mix in the grated chocolate and chopped walnuts.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,020 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,730 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, vanilla, chocolate):

Almondfits better
Pecansfits better
Cocoafits better
Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, vanilla, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.