Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Loaf Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Flour the mixed dried fruit.
Sift the flour and baking powder together.
Mix and bake
Fold the flour mixture and egg whites into the creamed butter and sugar.
Pour the batter into a bread tin.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 40 to 50 minutes.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Creams with the butter to aid aeration and adds sweetness and browning.
- Egg whites
- Beaten until stiff, they trap air that lightens the cake's structure.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and protein that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the loaf rise in the oven.
The step that matters
Folding the flour mixture and egg whites into the creamed butter and sugar. Folding gently keeps the air from the beaten egg whites in the batter. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a denser loaf that rises less.
“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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