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Dessert

White Pound Cake

A light, fluffy cake made with sugar, flour, butter, sour milk, egg whites, and optional flavoring and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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White Pound Cake

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 ↓

White 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

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the sour milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  6. Add flavoring and citron, then pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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.

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.

  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. Sugar + flourtop 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the cake its light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps hold air in the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that works with the leavening in the batter.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold the cake's air. Stirring them vigorously knocks out that air, leading to a dense, flat cake. Folding keeps the batter light and airy.

“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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