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Dessert

Loaf Cake, for Luncheon, Etc

A sweet loaf cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, rose water, lemon rind, nutmeg, cinnamon, potash, and milk.

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 ↓

Loaf Cake, for Luncheon, Etc

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Mix in the sugar and eggs until well combined.

  3. Add the flour, rose-water, lemon rind, nutmeg, cinnamon, carbonate of potash, and milk, then beat the mixture thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Line a cake mold with buttered paper and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 2 hours.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Carbonate of potash
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture thoroughly. Thorough beating develops the batter evenly and incorporates air, which helps the cake rise and gives a fine, even texture. Under-beating can leave dense pockets, while the leavening must be fully dissolved and mixed in to work evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, rose, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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