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Dessert

A Good Pound Plum-Cake

A pound cake flavored with plum, currants, candied fruit, nutmeg, cinnamon, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Good Pound Plum-Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Beat in the sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the egg whites and yolks, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the grated nutmeg and pounded cinnamon.

  5. Gradually add the flour, currants, and candied fruits, mixing well.

  6. If desired, add the brandy and mix until incorporated.

  7. Beat the mixture for 30 to 45 minutes to make the cake light.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a hoop lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours.

  3. Ice the cake if desired.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air during beating.
Egg whites and yolks
Provide structure as the batter sets and add richness and moisture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the proteins set in the oven.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour; optional.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for 30 to 45 minutes. Long beating incorporates air that lifts the batter, but overbeating after the flour is added can develop gluten and make the cake tough and dense. Keep the beating steady and stop once the batter is smooth and airy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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