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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A yeast‑leavened cake made with butter, milk, eggs, flour, sugar, raisins, currants, spices, wine, and brandy.

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 ↓

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cut the butter into the milk and warm until soft, then let it cool.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix them with the butter and milk.

  3. Stir the mixture into the flour, then add the spice and liquor.

  4. Gradually stir in the sugar.

  5. Pour off the thin part from the yeast and add it to the mixture.

  6. Sprinkle in the remaining flour.

  7. Flour the fruit well and gradually stir it into the mixture.

Rise and bake

  1. Butter a large tin pan and pour the cake batter into it.

  2. Cover and let it rise in a warm place for 5 to 6 hours.

  3. When light, bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating the flour and carrying fat through the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Brewer's yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and lightens the crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give it a fine, even crumb.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness to the fruit-studded crumb.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise fully before baking. Yeast needs time in a warm place to produce gas; if the batter is not light before it goes in the oven, the loaf will be dense and fail to rise further in the heat.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, raisin, milk, wine. 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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