Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
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.
Prepare
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Warm 90% of the mixture and set aside.
Mix and rise
In the morning, add the remaining sugar and butter, eggs, spices, and fruit.
Let the mixture rise.
Bake
Pour into pans and let it rise again.
Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) like bread.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake crumb as it sets in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavour through the crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during slow baking.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the crumb.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a soft, even crumb.
- Yeast
- Produces gas during rising, lifting the batter before baking.
The step that matters
Let the mixture rise before baking. Yeast needs time to produce gas and lighten the dough. Pouring into pans and letting it rise again gives the loaf its open texture; skipping or shortening the rise leaves a dense cake.
“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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