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Luncheon Cake

A simple yeast cake made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sea salt, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Luncheon Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the milk and stir in flour until you have a thick batter.

  2. Add the yeast and set aside to rise.

  3. Once light, stir in more flour until thick.

  4. Mix in the melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread the batter thinly in buttered dripping pans using a spoon dipped in melted butter.

  2. Let the batter rise until very light.

  3. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top and bake.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Milk
Makes the batter wet enough to mix and rise with the yeast.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter as it thickens and sets in the oven.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and turn light and airy.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps keep the crumb tender.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise until very light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas. If the batter is underproofed, the cake stays dense; the rise before baking gives it its light texture.

“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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