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Dessert

English Pound Cake

A fruit-filled pound cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, brandy, and dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Mix all the prepared fruit together: shred almonds, cut cherries in half, and chop prunes.

  4. Beat eggs until light and fluffy.

Make the batter

  1. Alternately mix flour, eggs, and fruit into the butter and sugar mixture.

  2. Once well combined, add spice, brandy, browning, and baking soda.

  3. Mix thoroughly again, then pour mixture into prepared baking tin.

Bake

  1. Bake in preheated oven for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a creamy, aerated base with the butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the eggs and heat firm the batter.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture, and richness, and help bind the batter and fruit together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Raisins
Add moisture, chew, and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake in preheated oven for 4 to 5 hours. A long, low bake lets heat reach the dense, fruit-heavy center without scorching the outside. Too high a heat or an oven that has not come up to temperature can leave the outside dark while the middle stays raw.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, brandy, raisin, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, brandy, raisin, almond. 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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