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Dessert

Pound Cake

A sweet cake made with equal parts sugar, butter, flour, eggs, and optional spices, citron or almonds, and brandy.

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

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Stir in the sifted flour and add mace or nutmeg to taste.

  5. If desired, mix in the citron or powdered almonds and brandy just before pouring into pans.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into pans lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

  3. If the cake bakes too quickly, cover it with thick paper.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to help build a light, fluffy batter and add sweetness.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and beaten whites add lift and airy structure.
Sifted flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.

The step that matters

Incorporate the beaten egg whites gently. Folding rather than beating the whites keeps the air bubbles intact, so the cake rises light instead of collapsing or turning dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, flour, almond, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, almond, brandy. 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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