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Dessert

Bread Cake

A sweet loaf made from risen dough, butter, sugar, currants, eggs, brandy, nutmeg, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and beaten eggs until well combined.

  2. Gradually mix this mixture into the risen dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a loaf.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown, similar to baking bread.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Risen dough
Provides the bread-like structure and airy crumb that the loaf is built on.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, helping the cake crumb feel soft.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps brown the crust as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Currants
Add sweet, chewy bursts of fruit throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing the creamed mixture into the risen dough. Adding the batter-like mixture slowly lets it blend evenly into the dough. Dumping it in at once can deflate the dough's gas and leave uneven streaks of butter and sugar.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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