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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A spiced loaf cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, spices, citron, currants, flour, brandy, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 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).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the molasses and eggs, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the mace, clove, allspice, citron, and currants.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the brandy.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and browning, and helps create a soft texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and acidity that activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Alternating dry ingredients with brandy. Adding the flour in portions and alternating with liquid keeps the batter smooth and prevents overmixing, which would toughen the gluten and make the loaf dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, egg, clove, allspice, currant):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, egg, clove, allspice, currant. 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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