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 ↓
German Pound-Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sift 10 ounces of flour into a bowl using a wire sieve.
In a separate bowl, cream 8 ounces of fresh butter with your hands.
Line a cake tin with buttered parchment paper, placing three rounds of buttered paper at the bottom.
Make the batter
Gradually mix in 1 tablespoon of sifted flour, 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar, and 1 egg until well combined.
Continue adding the remaining flour, sugar, and eggs until fully incorporated.
Grate the zest of 1 lemon into the mixture.
Stir in ¼ pound of sultana raisins and 2 ounces of candied peel.
Bake and cool
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours.
After baking, turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on its side or on a wire rack.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Fresh butter
- Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for a lighter texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the crumb.
- Sultana raisins
- Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Adding the flour, sugar, and eggs gradually. Adding eggs slowly to creamed butter keeps the emulsion from breaking. A broken batter can bake up heavy and greasy, so add each egg with some flour and mix until combined before adding more.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg. 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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