Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Plain 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).
Make the batter
Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Mix in the beaten yolks of the eggs, nutmeg, wine, and rose-water.
Stir in the sifted flour and then fold in the beaten egg whites.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake 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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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
- Sugar
- Creams with butter to aid aeration and adds sweetness and golden browning.
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and emulsify; whipped whites add structure and lift.
- Sifted flour
- Provides the starch and gluten network that sets the cake's structure.
- Wine
- Adds liquid moisture and a touch of acidity and aroma to the batter.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring them vigorously or overmixing after adding the flour deflates the foam and produces a dense cake.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, wine, rose, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Tarragonfits less well
- Thymefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, wine, rose, flour. 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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