Name: Pound Cake
Ingredients: half pounds of butter creamed; two pounds flour; two pounds sugar; one gill of brandy; one nutmeg; lemon peel; nutmeg

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon 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 ↓

Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

To one and a half pounds of butter creamed, add two pounds flour, two pounds sugar, and eighteen eggs well beaten. Put alternately into the butter the sugar, flour, and beaten eggs. Continue to beat them together until quite light, then add lemon peel, one nutmeg, and one gill of brandy.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

630Calories

14 gProtein

14 gFat

112 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Brandy	not in our table	0

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

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the lemon

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, brandy, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.