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 ↓
White 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.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and lemon extract, mixing well.
Stir in the chopped nuts.
Sift the baking powder and flour together, then mix in lightly.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them in gently but thoroughly.
Prepare your mold and fill it with the batter.
Bake and finish
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.
Once cool, ice with your favorite icing.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Beaten into foam, they trap air and help the cake rise and stay light.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds fat for a tender, rich crumb.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a fine, tender texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, lifting the cake as it heats in the oven.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Fold the stiffly beaten egg whites in gently but thoroughly. Overmixing knocks out the air they hold, so the cake rises less and turns dense, while underfolding leaves pockets of unmixed white.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk, lemon):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Milletfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, milk, lemon. 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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