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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake with currants, raisins, mixed peel, and nutmeg, baked in a loaf pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

  3. Add the currants, raisins, brown sugar, mixed peel, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Mix in the eggs, almond essence, and enough milk to form a soft dough.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan and smooth the top.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a skewer 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Rubbed into the flour to tenderise the crumb and add richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the cake rise in the loaf pan.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper caramel flavour.
Currants
Add chewy fruit pieces and sweetness throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness. Loaf cakes can look browned outside while the centre is still wet. A skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean, showing the starch and egg have set throughout.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, egg, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, egg, almond. 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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