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Dessert

Common Pound Cake

A dense cake made with equal parts flour, sugar, butter, eggs, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Common Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a baking pan with well-buttered parchment paper.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy.

  2. Whisk the eggs until thick.

  3. Gradually stir the eggs into the butter and sugar, alternating with the flour.

  4. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, and brandy gradually.

  5. Beat the mixture vigorously for 15 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 3 hours.

  2. The cake is done when the edges pull away from the sides of the pan.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when beaten with butter for a tender texture.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the batter.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set, along with moisture and richness, and help bind the batter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the batter, with a small amount of liquid moisture.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture vigorously for 15 minutes. Extended beating incorporates air into the butter, sugar and eggs, which helps lift the dense batter during baking. Overmixing after the flour is added can, however, develop too much gluten and toughen the crumb.

“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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