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Dessert

Hickory Nut Cake

A cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, hickory nuts, flour, and baking powder, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and nuts work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 105 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Hickory Nut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and chopped hickory nuts, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add flour and baking powder until the dough is stiff enough to roll.

Bake and serve

  1. Roll out the dough and place it between two heated discs.

  2. Bake for about 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Serve warm with a glass of rich milk.

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. Coffee + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nuts + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Hickory nuts
Add nutty flavor and texture to the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough hold its shape when rolled.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the dough and lightens its texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the butter cream to a light base.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour and baking powder until the dough is stiff enough to roll. Adding flour too fast can leave pockets of dry flour or a dough that is too soft to roll. Adding it gradually lets you judge stiffness, which controls how the cake holds its shape and bakes evenly.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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