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 ↓
German Pound Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Sift the flour into a bowl using a wire sieve.
Line a cake tin with buttered parchment paper, placing three rounds at the bottom.
Make the batter
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter until smooth.
Add 2 teaspoons of the sifted flour, 2 teaspoons of sugar, and 1 egg to the butter, mixing well.
Gradually mix in the remaining flour, sugar, and eggs until fully combined.
Grate the rind of the lemon into the mixture.
Stir in the sultana raisins and chopped candied peel.
Bake and cool
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 hours.
Once baked, turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on its side or on a wire rack.
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 + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, tender texture when creamed with butter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure, moisture and richness to the crumb.
- Sultana raisins
- Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Creaming the butter until smooth. Beating butter with sugar traps air that gives the cake lift. If the butter is too cold or not beaten enough, the batter stays dense. Adding eggs gradually also helps prevent curdling, which can make the crumb coarse.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg. 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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