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Dessert

Pound Cake

A sweet cake made with equal parts eggs, sugar, flour, butter, and optional brandy, currants, spices, candied rind, and caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pound Cake

Why it works: Flour and caraway 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 ↓

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, flour, and butter until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the brandy and currants, mixing gently.

  3. Incorporate any spices, candied rind, or caraway seeds if desired.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake for 1 hour if using half the quantity of ingredients.

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.

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.

  1. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Orange + carawaytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together158 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the brandy and currants, mixing gently. Mixing gently keeps the batter from being overworked, which would develop too much gluten and make the cake dense and tough.

Swap the caraway

The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, butter, brandy, currant, orange):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

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