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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
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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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

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

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

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

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

  5. Gradually add flour until the batter is as stiff as pound cake.

  6. Fold in the currants and 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set, binding the heavy batter together.
Saleratus (baking soda)
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the cake its stiff, sturdy structure.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter is as stiff as pound cake. Too much flour or overmixing develops excess gluten, making the loaf tough and dense, while too little leaves it too loose to hold the fruit and rise evenly.

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.

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