Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Irish 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).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the flour, baking powder, grape juice, and rose water until just combined.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake
Bake for 1 hour, starting at a slightly higher temperature for the first half, then reducing the heat for the second half.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + grapetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,028 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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
- Flour
- Builds the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, when creamed with butter, helps give a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
- Eggs
- Add structure and help bind the batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
- Sweet cream
- Adds moisture and richness to the batter.
The step that matters
Stir in the flour until just combined. Once flour is wet, gluten develops with stirring. Overmixing at this stage makes the cake tough and dense, so stop as soon as no dry flour remains.
Swap the grape
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, cream, egg, rose):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Grapethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, cream, egg, rose. 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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