Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Quaker 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the sweet milk and grated nutmeg.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.
Fold in the chopped raisins.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
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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).
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
- Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
The step that matters
Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Gradually adding the dry ingredients and mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development limited. Overmixing toughens the cake and can make it dense.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, butter, milk, raisin):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Jalapenofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, butter, milk, raisin. 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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