Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Loaf Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Mix and rise
In a large bowl, combine the flour, eggs, butter, yeast, water, and a pinch of salt, and mix well.
Set the bowl in a warm place to rise.
Add the loaf sugar and mix again.
Bake
Prepare a baking pan as you would for other cakes.
Pour the mixture into the pan and let it rise again.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 it bakes.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the cake set as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise before baking.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning in the finished cake.
The step that matters
Letting the mixture rise before baking. Yeast needs a warm place and enough time to produce gas. Under-proofed batter bakes dense, while over-proofed batter can collapse, so the rise should be checked before it goes into the oven.
“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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