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 ↓
Howard 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the sweet milk and wine.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.
Fold in the raisins and currants.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake crumb as its proteins set during baking.
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
- Sugar
- Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure, moisture and richness as they set.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a tender crumb with the flour.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Mixing too long after adding flour develops gluten, which toughens the crumb. Stopping once the flour is just incorporated keeps the cake tender.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, milk, egg, wine, raisin):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, milk, egg, wine, 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.
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