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Dessert

Nut Cake

Nut Cake is a sweet baked dessert made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg whites, nuts, and frosted with sour cream, sugar, and chocolate.

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

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 ↓

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour and baking powder.

  5. Fold in the egg whites and nuts until just combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake and frost

  1. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the frosting, mix the sour cream, sugar, and chocolate until smooth.

  3. Spread the frosting over the cooled 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Nuts + chocolatetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake once the batter sets in the oven.
Egg whites
Add structure and help bind the batter while adding lightness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter brown and stay moist.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a slight tang to the frosting.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites and nuts. Overmixing knocks air out of the whipped structure and toughens the batter, so the cake comes out dense. Stop as soon as the ingredients are just combined.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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

More nut cake recipes

Hickory 164Chocolate 6Cocoa 6Sour Cream 5White 5Macaroons 3 See all 162 →

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