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Dessert

★ Sister Elliott’s Plain Loaf Cake and Cookies

A loaf cake and cookies made with oil, sugar, eggs, flour, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

★ Sister Elliott’s Plain Loaf Cake and Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine ½ cup oil, 1½ cups sugar, yolks of 2 eggs, 4½ cups flour, 1 cup milk, salt, and flavoring whites of 3 eggs.

  2. Cream oil and sugar.

  3. Add a little flour, yolks of eggs, salt and flavoring.

  4. Add milk and flour alternately.

  5. Beat well and fold in the stiff whites of eggs.

Bake

  1. Chill, or bake at once thoroughly, in 1 large or 2 small loaves in moderate oven that bakes well from the bottom.

  2. For cookies, use 2 whites of eggs only and make dough stiff enough to roll.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

901Calories
28 gProtein
33 gFat
121 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and whites, beaten stiff and folded in, lighten the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form the batter, which is added alternately with the flour.
Oil
Adds fat for a moist, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while baking.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiff whites of eggs. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which is what lightens the batter. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out and leaves a denser loaf.

“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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