Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
German 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
Sift the flour through a fine wire sieve.
Cream the butter until smooth.
Add 2 teaspoons of flour to the butter.
Add 2 teaspoons of caster sugar to the butter.
Add 1 egg to the butter. Mix well.
Gradually add the remaining sugar to the mixture.
Gradually add the remaining flour to the mixture.
Gradually add the remaining eggs to the mixture. Mix thoroughly.
Add the fruit and peel
Grate the lemon rind into a separate bowl.
Add the sultana raisins to the lemon rind.
Add the chopped candied peel to the lemon rind.
Combine all ingredients in the first bowl using a wooden spoon.
Bake and cool
Line a cake tin with three layers of buttered parchment paper at the bottom.
Pour the mixture into the tin.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.
Remove the cake from the oven.
Cool it on a wire rack.
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.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as the cake bakes and sets.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
- Caster sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps cream the butter to a light texture.
- Sultana raisins
- Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs gradually. Adding eggs slowly lets the emulsion hold. If the eggs go in too fast the batter can curdle and the cake may turn out heavy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, raisin, sugar, butter, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, raisin, sugar, butter, flour. 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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