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Dessert

Fruit Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake with raisins, currants, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fruit Loaf Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour with the cream of tartar.

  3. Make a well in the center and add the softened butter, brown sugar, molasses, sweet milk, and eggs.

  4. Mix everything together with your hands until well combined.

  5. Flour the raisins and currants, then fold them into the batter along with the grated nutmeg and cinnamon.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 2 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and crumb together.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
New orleans molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and browning to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb.

The step that matters

Flouring the raisins and currants. Dusting the dried fruit with flour helps it stay suspended in the batter rather than sinking to the bottom of the loaf during baking.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, egg, flour, cream. 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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