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Dessert

Raised Loaf Cake

A sweet yeast loaf cake with raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and wine or brandy, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Raised 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.

Make the sponge

  1. Combine warm milk, sugar, and yeast in a bowl, then add enough flour to create a thick batter.

  2. Cover and let the batter rise in a warm place overnight.

Enrich and shape

  1. In the morning, mix in the butter until well combined.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and wine or brandy, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Sift and chop the raisins, coat them in flour, and fold them into the batter.

  4. Divide the batter between two medium-sized cake pans and let it rise until doubled in size.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for 50 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the batter, producing gas that lifts the cake and gives it an airy crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set and hold its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, softening the crumb.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure, which sets as the cake bakes.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise until doubled in size. The yeast needs enough time and warmth to build gas before baking. If the pans are underproofed, the loaf stays dense; if overproofed, it can collapse in the oven.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Applefits less well

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