Skip to main content
Dessert

A Plain Loaf Cake

A loaf cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, eggs, spices, flour, currants, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

A Plain 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the molasses and sour milk, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the baking soda, eggs, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff, similar to pound cake.

  6. Fold in the currants and stoned raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 2 hours 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses notes deepen the flavor.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a robust sweetness with mild acidity.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Baking time at low heat. Baking at a low 300°F for a long time lets the dense, fruit-filled batter cook through evenly without the outside browning or burning before the center sets. Check doneness with a toothpick in the center.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, milk, egg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, egg, clove, 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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes