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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A yeast-leavened loaf cake with raisins, wine, brandy, butter, sugar, eggs, and spices.

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

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, rub together the butter and sugar.

  3. Take half of the butter and sugar mixture and work it into the flour.

  4. Add ½ cup of domestic yeast and mix to form a dough that is not quite as stiff as biscuit dough.

  5. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in size.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Work in the remaining butter and sugar mixture, along with the spices and brandy.

  2. Once the dough is light, add the beaten eggs and the fruit.

  3. Let the dough rise in the tins for 1 hour.

  4. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  5. Frost if desired; this cake will keep all winter.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and cake together as it rises and bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour particles and shortening the crumb.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake moist and browned.
Large eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the dough and fruit together.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast gives off gas that gets trapped in the gluten network, so the dough must rise fully to become light; underproofed dough bakes dense.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, wine, brandy, egg):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, wine, brandy, egg. 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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