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Dessert

Fruit Pound Cake

A pound cake made with sugar, currants, butter, eggs, citron, spices, baking powder, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Stir in the currants, citron, cinnamon, and allspice.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the baking powder with the flour.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, alternating with the milk, until a stiff batter forms.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 2 hours, 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.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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 and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Currants
Add fruit flavor and pockets of sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking until fully set. Pound cake batter is dense and heavy, so it needs a long, steady bake; pulling it early can leave a gummy center, while the toothpick test confirms the structure has set through.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, cinnamon, allspice, milk, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, cinnamon, allspice, milk, flour. 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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