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Dessert

Walnut Cake

A baked walnut cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, walnuts, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Walnut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. Add the flour and Magic Baking Powder, mixing until combined.

  5. Fold in the chopped walnuts.

  6. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for one hour at 350°F (175°C).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Magic baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Eggs
Beaten whites trap air and set during baking, adding lift and structure.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour, with fat that enriches the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring them vigorously knocks air out, so they should be folded in gently and only until just combined.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Milletfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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