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Dessert

Pound Cake

A simple pound cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, baking soda, hot water, and optional citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pound Cake

Why it works: Butter and flour 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

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

  2. Weigh the eggs.

  3. Use the same weight of sugar as the eggs.

  4. Use one cup less of butter.

  5. Use one cup less of flour.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs one by one, mixing constantly while adding eggs.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water, then add the dissolved baking soda to the mixture.

  4. Gradually mix in the flour.

  5. If desired, fold in the citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pan.

  2. Bake until golden.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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 moisture, and help bind the batter together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one by one while mixing constantly. Adding eggs gradually lets them emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them too quickly can make the batter curdle and separate, which affects the final texture.

“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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