Skip to main content
Dessert

Aunt Hettie's Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake with raisins, nutmeg, and a light, airy texture.

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

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 ↓

Aunt Hettie's 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 light and fluffy.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then set aside.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks with the creamed mixture.

  2. Stir in 3 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar.

  3. Add the sweet milk and the beaten egg whites, then mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the remaining flour, 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar, and the grated nutmeg.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in water and add to the mixture.

  6. Fold in the dredged raisins or currants.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick 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. 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
Whites trap air for lift and structure; yolks add richness and tenderness.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake, softens the crumb, and aids browning.
Cream of tartar
Acid that reacts with baking soda to produce gas for rising and stabilizes the egg whites.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide when activated by acid, helping the loaf rise.

The step that matters

Keep the beaten egg whites airy. Stiff egg whites trap air that lifts the cake. Overmixing or heavy stirring deflates them, producing a denser loaf with less rise.

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 raisin loaf cake recipes

Currant 7 See all 19 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes