Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 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
Wash the salt from the butter.
Beat the butter with the sugar until creamy.
Sift the flour.
Beat the eggs separately.
Make the batter
Add the eggs alternately with the flour to the butter and sugar mixture.
Continue beating until the batter is light.
Add the grated nutmeg, brandy, and rose-water or essence of lemon. Mix well.
Bake
Butter a pan.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
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.
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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Brandy + rosetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together560 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a rich, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness as they set, and help the batter rise and hold its airy texture.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps hold air in the creamed butter for a light texture.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.
The step that matters
Beating the eggs and adding them alternately with the flour. Eggs must be added gradually to the creamed butter and sugar so the emulsion stays stable. Adding them too quickly can cause the batter to curdle and lose air, leading to a dense cake.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, brandy, rose):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Allspicefits less well
- Clovefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, brandy, rose. 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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