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Bread

Loaf Cake

A yeast‑leavened loaf cake with raisins, butter, shortening, lard, milk, eggs, sugar, flour, wine, nutmeg, and yeast.

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

Loaf Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Take half of the creamed mixture and combine it with the flour and warmed milk, then add the yeast. Let it stand until light.

Finish and bake

  1. Mix in the remaining ingredients, let the dough rise, and then bake.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Cake yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, lightening the dough so it rises.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set as it bakes.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps it moist.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture, and pockets of fruit throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Let the sponge stand until light. The yeast needs time and warmth to ferment and build gas. Stopping too early leaves the dough dense, while letting it go too long can weaken the gluten so the loaf collapses.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

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