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Bread

Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake with raisins, butter, sugar, and spices baked in a loaf pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar into the dough using your hands.

  2. Add the egg, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, and dissolved baking soda mixture.

  3. Flour the chopped raisins and fold them into the batter.

  4. If using wine or brandy, add a little extra flour if the batter seems too thin.

  5. Mix thoroughly and let the batter rise for about an hour until light.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake until golden.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Light dough
Forms the base of the batter, providing bulk and structure for the cake.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness and a soft crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the baked loaf.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture pockets throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Add extra flour only if the batter seems too thin. Wine or brandy adds liquid, which can loosen the batter. Too much liquid weakens the structure and can make the loaf dense or gummy, so a little flour helps restore body. Adding it only when needed avoids overcorrecting.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, wine, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, wine, milk. 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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