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Dessert

Walnut Cake

A walnut cake with a walnut filling, baked in a Yorkshire pudding tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Walnut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Add the vanilla and chopped walnuts.

  5. Sift the flour and stir it quickly and lightly into the mixture.

  6. Grease and line a Yorkshire pudding tin.

  7. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Cool, fill and finish

  1. Turn the cake out onto sugared paper and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, cut the cake in half horizontally.

  3. For the filling, cream the butter, then gradually add the icing sugar and vanilla.

  4. Stir in the chopped walnuts and spread on one half of the cake.

  5. Place the other half on top, trim the edges, and ice with white glace icing.

  6. Decorate with walnut halves.

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

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

  2. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Provide structure as they set and trap air, forming the cake's crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, aerated batter when creamed.
Self-raising flour
Provides the flour structure and, with its raising agent, helps the cake rise.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour to the cake and filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour quickly and lightly. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, making the cake tough and dense instead of tender. Sifting and folding gently keeps the crumb light.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, vanilla. 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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