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Dessert

Pound Cake

A buttery cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, and optional candied fruit and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pound Cake

Why it works: Vanilla and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter until very light.

  2. Add the sugar and beat thoroughly until light.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and beat for a long time.

  4. Gradually add the beaten whites of the eggs and flour alternately.

  5. For a richer cake, mix in the candied cherries, pineapple, and angelique.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into one large loaf pan or two flat, long pans.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped pecans on top if desired.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Vanilla + pecanstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Brandy + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 fine, tender structure and rich flavour.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and whites add air and structure as the cake sets.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter hold air when creamed with butter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the beaten whites of the eggs and flour alternately.. Adding flour and whites in small alternating portions keeps the batter light and blended. Overmixing after the flour goes in can develop gluten and make the cake dense.

Swap the pineapple

The recipe marks pineapple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, flour, brandy, vanilla, sugar, pecans):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, brandy, vanilla, sugar, pecans. 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.

More pound cake recipes

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