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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake with raisins, spices, and optional wine or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  3. In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugar into the dough using your hands.

  4. Flour the chopped raisins to prevent them from sinking.

Make the batter

  1. Add the egg, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, dissolved baking soda, and optional wine or brandy to the dough.

  2. Mix thoroughly until well combined; add a little flour if the batter is too thin.

  3. Let the mixture rise for about an hour or until it looks light.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

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

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

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 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

Dough
Forms the base of the cake, giving bulk and structure to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Let the mixture rise. Baking soda needs time to produce gas and lighten the batter. Under-rising leaves a dense loaf, so wait until the batter looks light before baking.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, wine, milk. 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.

More loaf cake recipes

Chocolate 35French 25Raisin 19Indian 17Coconut 16Plain 13 See all 114 →

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