Skip to main content
Main

Indian Loaf Cake

A yeast-leavened loaf cake made with powdered sugar, milk, butter, salt, yellow Indian meal, eggs, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Indian 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.

Make the mush

  1. Mix the sugar with the milk and cut in the butter.

  2. Add the salt.

  3. Heat the mixture in a covered pan until scalding hot.

  4. Gradually stir in enough yellow Indian meal to achieve a thick mush consistency.

  5. Beat the mixture vigorously for 15 minutes and let it cool.

Add eggs and yeast

  1. Once warm, beat the eggs lightly and stir them into the mixture.

  2. Add the yeast and beat the mixture for another 15 minutes.

Rise, bake and serve

  1. Prepare a well-buttered tin mold or earthen pan with a pipe in the center.

  2. Pour in the mixture, cover it, and let it rise in a warm place for about 4 hours.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

  4. Turn the cake out with the broad surface down and serve hot, sliced with butter.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Yellow indian meal
Thickens the milk into a firm mush that gives the cake its body.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Yeast
Leavens the batter during the long rise, giving the cake its lightness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.
Rich milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture for the mush.

The step that matters

Beating the mush before the yeast goes in. Cooling to warm before adding eggs and yeast matters because live yeast and eggs can be damaged by heat, and vigorous beating traps air that helps the cake rise evenly.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes