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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake with raisins or currants, nutmeg, and a batter of sugar, butter, eggs, flour, and baking soda.

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

Loaf 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

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the sugar and butter mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Make the batter

  1. Incorporate 3 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar into the mixture.

  2. Add 2 more cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar, and 1 cup of milk, then stir well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Add the grated nutmeg, raisins or currants, and the baking soda dissolved in water.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans and bake for about 50-60 minutes.

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.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while the yolks add richness and structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the loaf together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb soft and moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and stabilises the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. The whipped whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring or overmixing knocks out this air, leaving a denser loaf that rises less.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, cream, milk, raisin. 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 loaf cake recipes

Chocolate 35French 25Raisin 19Indian 17Coconut 16Plain 13 See all 114 →

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