Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Stir in the milk.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda and cream of tartar, then add to the wet ingredients and mix quickly.
Fold in the chopped raisins and walnuts.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking sheet and bake for 35 minutes.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
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
- Pastry flour
- Provides the starch and gluten structure that sets the cake's crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming traps air for lift.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed with butter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Provides acidity that activates the baking soda and stabilizes the rise.
The step that matters
Mix the batter quickly after adding the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to develop, and overmixing makes the cake tough. The leavening gas also starts forming right away, so brief mixing keeps the rise strong.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, raisin, cream):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, raisin, cream. 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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