Skip to main content
Dessert

White Pound Cake

A light, buttery cake made with sugar, flour, butter, egg whites, and baking powder, topped with a sugar‑egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
White 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 ↓

White Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. In a separate bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar.

  5. Incorporate the egg whites gently until well combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and place in the oven.

  7. Increase the oven temperature gradually as the cake bakes.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, boil 3 cups of sugar with 1 cup of water until clear.

  2. Beat 3 egg whites to stiff peaks in a bowl.

  3. Pour the boiling sugar mixture over the egg whites while beating continuously for 10 minutes.

Finish

  1. Frost the cake while both the cake and icing are warm.

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter once incorporated.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling sugar syrup into the whipped egg whites. The syrup must be hot and poured slowly while beating, or the whites cook unevenly and fail to form a stable, glossy foam. Beating continuously keeps the foam smooth and airy.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes