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Dessert

Golden Pound Cake

A buttery, egg yolk-rich pound cake baked to a golden finish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Golden Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter for 10 minutes until smooth.

  2. Divide the egg yolks into three portions.

  3. Add one-third to the mixture and mix for 3 minutes.

  4. Add half of the remaining egg yolks and mix as before.

  5. Add the last portion of egg yolks and mix again.

  6. Gently fold in the flour until combined.

Prepare and bake

  1. Grease a round or dripping pan and line the sides and bottom with paper.

  2. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  3. If the batter is thicker than 1½ inches, it will require more baking time.

  4. After baking, remove the paper and ice the bottom of the cake.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Egg yolks
Add richness, emulsify the batter, and help set the structure as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped structure and helps keep the batter's texture fine.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks gradually. Adding yolks in portions, and mixing each in fully, lets the fat and egg emulsify. Adding them all at once can split the batter, which affects the cake's texture.

“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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