Today we’re sharing another recipe from this fantastic book. We also made a powdered donut cake and, well, no one sneak bites of that one without powdered sugar down their shirt!

Signs that you may have found a keeper of a recipe:

• you always have the ingredients on hand
• it’s gone within 24 hours
• no one minds if you make it again a week later!

This recipe checks all three of those boxes. But honestly, I wasn’t sure if that’d be the case. Someone, *cough*Calder*cough*, in our house is not a big fan of walnuts, but realizing that we had a few pounds of walnuts sitting in the kitchen after the holidays, and I was determined to use them.

What to do with the walnuts?

Our walnut-disliker is not a fan of the nuts on salads or in pestos (though I think that’s a fantastic use!). So I decided to focus on desserts. I started with these blondies. With their chocolate chips and walnuts, those went over really well, so I thought I’d try a dessert where walnuts were the primary flavor. Enter the buttered walnut cake from Snacking Cakes.

Buttered Walnut Cake

This cake has a deliciously rich nutty flavor that comes from toasting the chopped walnuts IN the melted butter. As expected, the process browns the butter, further enhancing the cake’s nutty flavor.

The original recipe calls for a maple coffee glaze and espresso powder in the batter. We skip the espresso powder, and we’ve always eaten this cake plain. And again, the cake doesn’t last for more than a day, so I’m going to suggest that you don’t need either of those components.

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

• Preheat your oven to 350F. Butter a 9-inch round baking pan.
• Place the butter in a medium saucepan or skillet and melt over medium-high heat. Add the chopped walnuts and toast, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes. During these 3 minutes, the butter will start to foam, continue stirring. Once both the nuts and butter are toasty and brown, pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool for a few minutes.
• Place the sugar, eggs, sour cream, vanilla, salt, and walnut+butter mixture into a large bowl. Whisk until well-combined and emulsified.
• Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk until well-combined and smooth.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing with an offset spatula if necessary.
• Bake for approximately 25-35 minutes until the cake is puffed and golden. A tester inserted into the middle should come out clean. Cool the cake for about 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

Keeping Sour Cream Fresh

The recipe calls for sour cream. In the past this wasn’t something that we’d always have on hand because an open container would go bad before we used it up. BUT since we’ve started buying sour cream in the squeeze pouches, spoiled sour cream is not longer an issue. Since the bottle is sealed, the sour cream isn’t exposed to mold and we’re able to keep it and use the entire container without it going bad. Finding these little ways to reduce food waste is always a good thing.