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Dessert

Old-fashioned Loaf Cake

A yeast-leavened loaf cake with raisins, butter, sugar, milk, and spices, baked at 350°F.

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 ↓

Old-fashioned Loaf Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Scald the milk and let it cool to lukewarm.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the lukewarm milk, yeast, flour, softened butter, and half the sugar. Mix well and let rise until light, preferably overnight.

Mix and bake

  1. In the morning, add the remaining sugar, eggs, floured raisins, baking soda, and brandy or molasses. Mix until combined and let rise again.

  2. Fill baking pans. Let rise again.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the loaf together as the dough sets in the oven.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, making the dough light and open in texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set and hold its shape.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, soft crumb.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning through caramelization in the oven.
Whole milk
Supplies moisture and helps form the dough's soft texture.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. The yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Under-proofed dough stays dense, while the second rise after panning gives the loaf its final lift before baking.

“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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