Name: Cocoanut Pound Cake
Ingredients: one-half cupful of butter; two cupfuls of sugar; one cupful of milk; one teaspoonful of soda; four cups of sifted flour; five eggs; half full

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat butter, sugar, milk, and five eggs to a stiff froth.
Stir one teaspoonful of soda and two of cream of tartar into four cups of sifted flour.
Beat the butter and sugar until very light; add the beaten yolks, then the milk, the beaten whites of eggs, then the flour by degrees.
After beating all well together, add a small grated coconut.

Prepare and bake

Line the cake pans with paper, well buttered.
Fill the pans more than half full.
Bake in a moderate oven.

Frost and serve

Spread a thin frosting over the top, sprinkled thickly with grated coconut.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories

27 gProtein

26 gFat

120 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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

Eggs: Add structure and richness, and the whites lighten the batter when beaten.
Flour: Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and a rich crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and, when beaten with butter, helps trap air for a light texture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour by degrees. Adding flour gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cake tough.

“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.

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes

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Cocoanut Pound Cake