Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pound 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).
Cream the butter in a bowl.
Stir in the flour until combined.
Make the batter
In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until very light.
Mix the yolk and sugar mixture with the flour and butter.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.
Add the lemon juice and rind, and the mace.
Pour the batter into paper-lined pans.
Bake
Bake without moving the pans until golden brown.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, tender crumb when creamed or beaten.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and whipped whites lighten the batter.
The step that matters
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact; overmixing deflates them and produces a denser, heavier cake.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, lemon, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, lemon, 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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