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Dessert

Pound Cake

A simple cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, baking soda, milk, cream of tartar, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs until frothy.

  2. Add the sugar and butter, and beat well together.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  4. Sift the flour and rub the cream of tartar through it.

Mix and bake

  1. Combine the flour with the egg, sugar, and butter mixture.

  2. Stir thoroughly and add flavoring to taste.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and lift through their proteins, and add richness to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming with butter traps air.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cake to release gas, helping it rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that stabilizes the batter and helps the leavening react.

The step that matters

Combine the flour with the egg, sugar, and butter mixture. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stir just until the flour is evenly incorporated so the batter stays tender.

“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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