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Dessert

For Pound Cakes

A pound cake with candied lemon peel, caraway seeds or sultanas, crystallized fruit, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Caraway and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

For Pound Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually fold in the flour and salt.

  2. Incorporate the candied lemon peel, caraway seeds or sultanas, and diced crystallized fruit.

  3. Beat the mixture for 15-20 minutes as no baking powder is used.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared tin and lay the slices of citron on top.

  2. Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours, reducing the heat gradually after the cake has risen and is lightly browned.

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. Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + carawaytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Castor sugar
Creams with butter to aid aeration and adds sweetness and browning.
Candied lemon peel
Adds aroma and sweetness, with bursts of citrus flavour through the crumb.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for 15-20 minutes. With no baking powder, the cake relies on air beaten into the batter for lift. Under-beating leaves a dense crumb, while the batter must still be mixed gently enough to keep that air.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, caraway, butter, sugar, flour, 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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