Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
To Make Pound 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Butter a cake tin and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper.
Make the batter
In a mixing bowl, cream the softened butter until smooth.
Add the sugar and lemon zest to the butter and mix well.
Beat the eggs in a separate bowl for 10 minutes until frothy.
Gradually add the beaten eggs to the butter and sugar mixture.
Slowly incorporate the flour, mixing until well combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin.
For a currant pound cake, fold in the currants just before baking.
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
-
Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Orange + curranttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,034 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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 sets the cake's crumb as the batter bakes.
- Unsalted butter
- Creams with the sugar to trap air and gives the cake its rich, tender texture.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps build a light, aerated batter.
- Eggs
- Add structure and moisture, and their proteins help bind the batter as it sets.
The step that matters
Gradually add the beaten eggs to the butter and sugar mixture.. Adding eggs slowly lets the emulsion form without breaking. A broken batter can bake up dense and greasy.
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, orange):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, 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.
More pound cake recipes
You might also like
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipes
Orange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.