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Bread

Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake made with flour, sugar, butter, raisins, wine, brandy, eggs, baking soda, spices, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, rub the butter and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Take half of this mixture and work it into the flour.

  4. Add ½ pint of domestic yeast and mix to form a dough that is not as stiff as biscuit dough.

  5. Allow the dough to rise until well expanded.

Add the rest and bake

  1. Incorporate the remaining butter and sugar, along with the spices and brandy.

  2. Once the mixture is light, add the eggs, beaten separately, and the raisins.

  3. Let the dough rise in the tins for 1 hour.

  4. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  5. Frost if desired; this cake will keep all winter.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the crumb.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set during baking.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and bulk through the cake.

The step that matters

Working the butter and sugar into the flour. Rubbing the fat into flour coats the flour particles and limits gluten development, so the dough stays tender rather than tough. Rubbing until well combined gives an even texture.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

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