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Dessert

Toledo Bread Cake

A sweet bread cake made with bread dough, butter, brown sugar, eggs, brandy, spices, raisins, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Toledo Bread 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the brandy, baking soda, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  4. Fold in the bread dough, raisins, and flour until just combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and smooth the top.

Bake

  1. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 dough
Adds bulk and a dense, tender crumb to the cake.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and a tender texture when creamed with sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and caramel notes to the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to lift the batter and aid browning.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the bread dough, raisins, and flour. Folding gently until just combined keeps the batter light. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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