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 ↓
Pound Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix the flour and baking powder together.
Set aside 2 tablespoons of sugar to beat with the egg whites.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and remaining sugar together until light.
Beat the egg yolks with cold milk and stir into the butter mixture.
Add the grated nutmeg and mix well.
Gradually stir in half of the flour, then half of the beaten egg whites.
Repeat with the remaining flour and egg whites.
Bake
Pour the batter into a buttered cake pan and bake for 1 hour.
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.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Whites trap air for lift and yolks add richness and structure to the crumb.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to hold air and give the cake its tender, rich texture.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter and whipped into egg whites.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking to help the cake rise.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too hard or too long knocks out the air whipped into the whites, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light. Fold gently and only until combined.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, milk):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, milk. 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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