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 ↓
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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the sweet milk.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.
Fold in the chopped nuts.
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.
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 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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Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 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
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold its shape as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust while creaming aerates the batter.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
The step that matters
Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Mix only until just combined, so the batter stays tender.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, flour):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, 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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