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Dessert

Plain Loaf-Cake

A yeast-leavened loaf cake with butter, sugar, spices, and optional fruit.

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

Plain 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.

Make the dough

  1. Combine flour, warm water, melted butter, salt, eggs, and sugar in a bowl, then mix well.

  2. Add grated nutmegs, cinnamon, and yeast, and stir until combined.

  3. Let the mixture rise until light, about 1 hour.

Add fruit and bake

  1. If desired, fold in fruit and let it stand for another 30 minutes before baking.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the mixture rise and turn light and airy.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour and activates the yeast.

The step that matters

Let the mixture rise until light. Yeast gas expands the dough and gives the cake its lightness. Rising too briefly leaves a dense crumb, so the mixture should look visibly puffed before baking.

“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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