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Dessert

Pound Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, sultanas, lemon rind, candied peel, currants, and vanilla essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pound Cake

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and flour, mixing well.

  3. Beat in each egg separately.

  4. Continue adding flour and eggs until well mixed.

  5. Stir in the sultanas, lemon rind, salt, candied peel, currants, and vanilla essence.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a cake tin lined with paper.

  2. Bake for about 2 hours.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that form the cake's structure as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps aerate the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, richness and moisture to the crumb.
Sultanas
Add moisture and sweetness, and are the main fruit in the cake.

The step that matters

Beat in each egg separately. Adding eggs one at a time lets each one fully emulsify into the butter and sugar. Adding them all at once can cause the batter to curdle, which weakens the crumb.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Blueberryfits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, vanilla. 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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