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Loaf Bread Cakes

Bread cakes made from soaked loaf, milk, flour, eggs, and optional baking soda, then baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Loaf Bread Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut off the crusts of the bread and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Soak the bread pieces in milk for several hours.

  3. Mash the soaked bread until smooth.

Make the batter

  1. Add flour, eggs, and salt to the mashed bread and mix well.

  2. If using sour bread, dissolve baking soda in a little milk and stir it in.

Cook

  1. Bake the mixture on a griddle like batter bread.

  2. For waffles, add an additional pint of milk to the batter.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Bread
Forms the base of the batter, absorbing milk to create a soft, tender body.
Milk
Soaks the bread and hydrates the batter, providing moisture for a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Flour
Adds body and structure to the batter so it holds together on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of sour bread to lighten the batter and aid rising.

The step that matters

Mashing the soaked bread until smooth. If the bread stays in lumps, the batter cooks unevenly and bakes with dense pockets. Thorough mashing gives a uniform batter that sets smoothly on the griddle.

“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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