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Dessert

White Cake with Hickory Nuts

A light cake made with egg whites, butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, almond extract, and hickory nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Cake with Hickory Nuts

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 and sugar thoroughly.

  2. Add the flour and water alternately, leaving a small quantity of flour for the baking powder.

  3. Beat the mixture for 2 minutes, then add the almond extract and baking powder.

  4. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites.

  5. Add the extra tablespoon of flour and the chopped hickory nuts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, giving the cake lift and a light, airy crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter, it helps aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Pastry flour
Provides the structure of the cake, setting as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Hickory nut meats
Add flavor, crunch and fat to the crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in the batter so the cake rises evenly and stays light.

“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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