Name: Bread Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups light bread dough; 1½ cups sugar; ½ cup butter; 3 tablespoons sour milk; ½ teaspoon baking soda; ½ grated nutmeg; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 cup raisins, chopped and floured

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 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.

Mix

In a large bowl, combine the bread dough, sugar, butter, sour milk with baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Stir well to combine, then gently fold in the floured raisins.
Let the mixture rise for 30 minutes.

Bake

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

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Light bread dough: Provides the base structure and a soft, bread-like crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the cake.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Raisinthe original
Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, butter, milk, nutmeg, 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.