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Dessert

Bread Cake

A sweet cake made with light dough, sugar, butter, eggs, raisins, spices, and baking soda, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bread Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the light dough, sugar, butter, eggs, raisins, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  2. Let the mixture rise for a short time before baking.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  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

Light dough
Provides the bulk and yeasted structure that the cake batter is built around.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the crust brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot water to help the batter rise.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture rise before baking. The rise lets the batter gain lift before it enters the oven. Baking too soon can leave a dense cake, while the slow oven helps the centre set before the outside browns too quickly.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon. 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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