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 ↓
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).
Grease a cake mold, line it with parchment paper, and grease the parchment with unsalted butter.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Beat the eggs separately and then add them to the butter mixture.
Sift the baking powder into the flour at least four times, then gently mix it into the batter.
Add the lemon or vanilla extract and mix lightly.
Bake
Pour the batter into the prepared mold and bake until done.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter into a set crumb.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a lighter texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
The step that matters
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beating softened butter with sugar traps air in the fat, which gives the cake lift before it sets. Under-creaming leaves a dense crumb, and over-mixing after the flour is added can make it tough.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter, sugar):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter, sugar. 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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