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Dessert

Pyramid Pound Cake

A pound cake arranged in a pyramid shape, made with equal parts sugar, butter, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Pyramid Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased dripping pan, spreading it to 1 inch thick.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the cake cool completely before cutting it into pieces 3.5 inches long and 2 inches wide.

Frost and assemble

  1. Frost the top and sides of the cake.

  2. Arrange the pieces in a pyramid shape on a cake stand, starting with a circle of 5 pieces and layering 5 more on top, finishing with a bouquet of flowers.

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. Butter + flourtop 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).

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

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and traps air when creamed to lift the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as the batter bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture and richness, and help bind the batter together.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form; overmixing makes the cake tough and dense, so stop as soon as no dry flour remains.

“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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