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 ↓
Hickory 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg whites and mix well.
In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.
Fold in the walnut meats.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 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
- Add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilises the whipped egg whites and helps keep the cake's texture light.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, tender crumb when creamed with butter.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
The step that matters
Folding in the walnut meats. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the batter. Vigorous stirring develops gluten and deflates the batter, which can make the cake dense and tough.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, meat, sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Walnutthe original
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Chestnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, meat, sugar, butter, flour, milk, 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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