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Dessert

German Pound Cake

A spiced pound cake with ginger, cinnamon, treacle, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, flour, candied peel, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

German Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and mix

  1. Rub the flour through a sieve.

  2. Beat the butter to a cream.

  3. Add the ingredients by degrees: a tablespoonful of flour and sugar and one egg at a time, mixing thoroughly between.

  4. Leave the candied peel and lemon rind until the end, then mix all thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven for two hours.

Melt, combine and bake

  1. Put butter, sugar and treacle into a saucepan over the fire and stir until all is melted.

  2. Beat up the eggs, and pour into mixture. Stir thoroughly, but do not let it boil — only keep on fire until all is mixed.

  3. Put the dry ingredients into a basin, mix the baking soda well through, then add the mixture (eggs, treacle, etc.). Mix thoroughly.

  4. Put in a buttered tin, and bake in a slow oven, from about 1^ to If hours.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

847Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2

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

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Bind the batter and add structure as their proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, fine crumb through its fat.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Treacle
Adds moisture, sweetness and a deep color and flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic treacle to lighten the cake as it rises.
Lemon rind
Adds a bright citrus aroma to the cake.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture boil after adding the eggs. High heat makes egg proteins set too quickly, causing the mixture to curdle or scramble instead of forming a smooth, even batter.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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