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Dessert

Christmas Pound Cake

A pound cake made with butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, egg whites, blanched almonds, and rose extract.

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

Christmas Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light.

  2. Add the sifted flour and baking powder.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Stir in the shredded almonds and rose extract.

  5. Pour the mixture into a gourd mold.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours.

  2. Once done, remove from the pan and let cool.

  3. Decorate with sugared almonds before serving.

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. 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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Creams with sugar to trap air and give a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter.
Sifted flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Egg whites
Folded in to add lift and a light, airy texture.
Blanched, shredded almonds
Add body, texture and a nutty flavor to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air bubbles that give lift, so folding gently keeps them intact. Vigorous stirring knocks out air and leaves a denser cake.

“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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