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Dessert

White Pound Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, flour, eggs, baking powder, raisins, and flavored with nutmeg and optional lemon, wine, brandy, cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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White 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 ↓

White Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine one pound sugar, one pound flour, half pound butter, whites of sixteen eggs, and one teaspoon baking powder sifted with the flour.

  2. Place the batter in a cool oven and gradually increase the heat.

Make the icing and frost

  1. Take three cups sugar and boil in one cup of water until clear.

  2. Beat whites of three eggs to very stiff froth.

  3. Pour the boiling sugar liquid over the beaten egg whites, beating all the time for ten minutes.

  4. Frost the cake while both cake and icing are warm.

Cream, mix and bake

  1. Rub the butter, sugar and yolks of eggs to a perfect cream, beating a long time.

  2. Add the flour and raisins to the cream mixture.

  3. Bake for an hour and a half.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

758Calories
20 gProtein
19 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
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Waternot 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 Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a fine texture.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and moisture, while whipped whites add lightness and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling sugar syrup into the beaten egg whites. The hot syrup must be poured in a steady stream while beating constantly. This cooks the whites slightly and stabilizes the foam, so it stays stiff and does not collapse or turn grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, raisin, egg. 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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