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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A yeasted cake with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and optional raisins, baked after two rises.

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 dough

  1. In a large bowl, stir together 2 quarts of flour, 1 pint of slightly warmed milk, and 1 small teacup of yeast.

  2. Place the mixture near a warm spot to rise quickly.

  3. Once risen, mix in 4 beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, and ⅓ cup of brandy or wine.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, cream together ¾ pound of softened butter and 1 pound of sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Combine the butter‑sugar mixture with the cake batter and add 1 quart of sifted flour.

  3. Beat the mixture well for 10 to 15 minutes until smooth.

  4. Allow the batter to rise again until spongy and light.

Bake

  1. If desired, fold in 1½ pounds of raisins just before transferring to the pans.

  2. Pour the batter into buttered cake pans and let them sit for 15 to 20 minutes before baking.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake once the batter is mixed and set.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and gives the cake a light, spongy crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and carries flavor through the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, traps air for a lighter texture.
Milk
Provides moisture and helps hydrate the flour and activate the yeast.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for 10 to 15 minutes. Vigorous beating develops gluten in the flour, giving the batter strength to hold the rising gas and a smooth, even texture.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, cinnamon, brandy, butter, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, cinnamon, brandy, butter, sugar. 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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