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Dessert

Home-made Pound Cake

A simple pound cake made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Home-made Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Gradually add the flour and milk, mixing until just combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. If the top browns too quickly, cover it with parchment paper.

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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air that helps the cake rise and gives a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Patent flour
Provides the starch and protein that form the cake's structure as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light, fine texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps loosen the batter so it bakes evenly.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beating air into the softened butter with sugar creates the bubbles that help the cake rise and set a fine crumb. Under-creamed butter yields a denser cake.

“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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