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Dessert

Pound Cake

A sweet loaf made from butter, sugar, pastry flour, eggs, vanilla, lemon, mace, raisins or citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pound Cake

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, creaming together.

  2. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating at least three minutes between each egg.

  3. Add the sifted flour, mixing the baking powder with the last half cupful of flour.

  4. Lastly add the extracts, beating the cake thoroughly.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a loaf pan in a moderate oven for fifty minutes.

  2. If baked in a sheet, it may be cut in fancy shapes and iced with confectioner's icing.

  3. Add one cupful of stoned raisins or currants, or one quarter pound of citron to the batter.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

758Calories
20 gProtein
18 gFat
125 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Pastrynot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Fat that creams with sugar to trap air and give a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air during creaming for lightness.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter together.
Pastry flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed and baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Stoned raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Dumping them in together can split the batter, which weakens the air structure and makes a coarser, denser crumb.

“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.

More pound cake recipes

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