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Dessert

German Pound Cake

A pound cake made with flour, butter, sugar, candied peel, lemon rind, sultanas, and eggs.

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

German 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 the batter

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

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

  3. Gradually add the flour, mixing well.

  4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  5. Stir in the sultanas, chopped candied peel, and grated lemon rind.

Bake and cool

  1. Line a cake tin with buttered paper, placing three rounds at the bottom.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 2 hours.

  3. Once baked, turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich texture.
Caster sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and add sweetness and gentle browning.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, richness and lift as they are beaten in.
Sultanas
Add moisture and sweetness through the crumb as they plump during baking.
Candied peel
Adds concentrated sweetness and a citrus aroma throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy traps air that leavens the cake. Under-creamed butter leaves a dense, heavy crumb, so the mixture should look pale and airy before adding eggs.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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