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 ↓
Pound Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.
Beat the eggs (whites and yolks) and gradually mix them with the butter and sugar.
Beat the mixture for at least 20 minutes.
Fold in the flour and currants that have been picked and washed.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a rich, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they are beaten in.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together once baked.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, aerated batter when creamed with butter.
- Currants
- Add pockets of fruit sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Beating the mixture for at least 20 minutes. Long beating incorporates air into the batter, which gives the cake its lift and light texture. Under-beating leaves a dense cake, so keep beating for the full time.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, 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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