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Dessert

Hickory Nut Filling

A creamy filling made with sour cream, sugar, sweet cream, and chopped hickory nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Hickory Nut Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine sour cream and sugar.

  2. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in sweet cream and chopped hickory nuts.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Adds richness and tang, and its acidity helps the sugar mixture thicken into a smooth filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, once heated, helps it thicken and set as it cools.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the filling a softer, creamier texture.
Hickory nuts
Contribute a rich, distinctive nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Heating until thickened. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the sugar and dairy from scorching on the bottom of the pan and lets the mixture thicken evenly. Removing it from the heat at the right point prevents it from becoming grainy or overcooked.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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