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Dessert

Citron Pound Cake

A pound cake made with sugar, flour, butter, eggs, and finely shredded citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Citron Pound Cake

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 ↓

Citron Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Layer and bake

  1. In a cake pan, add a layer of batter and sprinkle thickly with citron.

  2. Repeat layering with batter and citron until the pan is filled.

  3. Bake for 1 to 2 hours, or 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.

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.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Citron
Adds bright, aromatic flavor and moist pockets throughout the layered cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently so the trapped air is not lost. Deflated batter bakes denser and heavier, losing the cake's intended lift.

“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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