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 ↓
Old-fashioned 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large mixing bowl, cream the softened butter with the mace or nutmeg.
Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl until thick and frothy.
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Combine the beaten yolks and whites, then gradually add the sugar while beating well.
Add a small portion of the flour to the butter mixture and stir to form a light batter.
Add the brandy as you mix.
Gently fold in the egg and sugar mixture.
Add the remaining flour and mix until well combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into buttered loaf pans, filling them two-thirds full.
Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.
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).
-
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,127 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Eggs
- Whites trap air for lift and yolks add richness and structure as the cake sets.
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar traps air and adds fat for a tender, rich crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the starch structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps hold air in the beaten eggs and butter.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg and sugar mixture. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites and yolks. Stirring hard deflates the batter, leading to a dense, flat cake.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, brandy):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, brandy. 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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