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Dessert

Pound Cake

A spiced, fruit‑laden cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, raisins, currants, citron, rosewater, brandy, molasses, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Pound Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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. 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and grated lemon rind.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the molasses and rosewater.

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased loaf pans.

  2. 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.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set in the baking batter.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Adding flour in alternation with liquids and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, sugar, egg, cinnamon, flour, clove):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, sugar, egg, cinnamon, flour, clove. 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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