Name: Virginia Pound Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound sugar; 1 pound Swans Down flour; ½ pound butter; 5 eggs; 1 cup cold water; 2 teaspoons Rumford baking powder; a pinch of salt

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 ↓

Virginia 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the eggs separately until fluffy.

Make the batter

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Gradually add the beaten eggs to the butter mixture.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Alternately add the flour mixture and cold water to the batter, mixing gently.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.
Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter: Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs: Add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.

The step that matters

Alternately add the flour mixture and cold water to the batter, mixing gently.. Adding flour and liquid in alternating portions keeps the batter smooth and emulsified. Mixing gently avoids overdeveloping gluten, which would make the crumb tough.

“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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Virginia Pound Cake