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Dessert

Nut Sheet Cake

A sheet cake made with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, almond extract, and chopped nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Nut Sheet Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot 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 together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk and almond extract.

  4. Sift together the baking powder and flour, then add to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the chopped nuts gently but thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Spread the batter about 1 inch thick in a greased pan.

  2. Optionally, dust the top with sugar.

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

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. Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure as they set, and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the batter rise and lighten.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the chopped nuts gently but thoroughly. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten and toughens the crumb, while gentle folding keeps the air trapped in the creamed batter so the cake stays light.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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