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Dessert

Loaf Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

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

  4. Add the yeast and mix to form a dough that is not quite as stiff as biscuit dough.

  5. Allow the dough to rise until well risen.

Enrich and bake

  1. Incorporate the remaining butter and sugar mixture, spices, and brandy into the dough.

  2. Once thoroughly light, add the beaten eggs and the fruit.

  3. Let the mixture 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
Forms the structure of the cake as the dough sets in the oven.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the crumb feel moist and soft.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, moisture, and chewy texture throughout the cake.
Yeast
Makes the dough rise and gives the cake its light, airy texture.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until thoroughly light. Yeast needs time to produce gas and stretch the gluten network. Under-proofed dough stays dense and heavy, while the cake needs a full rise before the eggs and fruit are added to keep its lightness.

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

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