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Dessert

Clove Loaf Cakes

A sweet loaf cake flavored with cloves, cinnamon, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Clove Loaf Cakes

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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk or water.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, and cloves.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for about 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning and a tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the loaf rise.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, raisin, milk, egg, cream):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, raisin, milk, egg, cream. 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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