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Dessert

English Pound Cake

A pound cake made with butter, flour, sugar, currants, candied peel, citron, almonds, eggs, and optional mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Work the butter to a cream.

  2. Add the sugar.

  3. Add the well-beaten yolks of eggs.

  4. Add the flour.

  5. Add the currants.

  6. Add the candied peel, cut into neat slices.

  7. Add the almonds, blanched and chopped.

  8. Mix all these ingredients well together.

  9. Whisk the whites of eggs and blend them thoroughly with the other ingredients.

  10. Beat the batter for twenty minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a round tin lined at the bottom and sides with strips of white buttered paper.

  2. Bake for two to two and a half hours, with the oven well heated at the start so currants do not sink.

  3. (Optional) Add a glass of wine to the mixture.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

753Calories
20 gProtein
19 gFat
124 gCarbs
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
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7

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

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a rich, tender crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a lighter texture.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, giving the cake its structure.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps hold air for a fine texture.
Currants
Add fruitiness and sweetness, and are held in place by a well-heated start to baking.

The step that matters

Preheat the oven well before baking. A well-heated oven sets the batter quickly at the start, so heavy fruit such as currants is held evenly in the cake rather than sinking to the bottom.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, almond, 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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