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Dessert

New York Pound Cake

A dense, buttery cake made with powdered sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, cream of tartar, and lemon and nutmeg flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

New York Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the powdered sugar and softened butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk, baking powder, and cream of tartar.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Add lemon and nutmeg flavors to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into large molds.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps give a light, fine crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for rich flavor and tender texture, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set and add richness and moisture to the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter can form gluten and set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour. Adding flour gradually and mixing only until combined keeps gluten development limited, which keeps the pound cake tender rather than tough.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, flour, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, flour, nutmeg. 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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