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Dessert

Citron Pound Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and finely shredded citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Citron Pound Cake

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Citron Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Layer and bake

  1. In a cake pan, add a layer of batter and sprinkle thickly with shredded citron.

  2. Repeat layering with batter and citron until the pan is filled.

  3. Bake for 1½ 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks give the cake its light, airy structure, while yolks add richness.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and add sweetness and browning.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set into the cake's structure as the batter bakes.
Citron
Shredded fruit distributed through the layers, adding flavor and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently. Overmixing deflates the air they hold, which leads to a dense cake rather than a light, risen one.

“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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