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Dessert

Washington Loaf-cake

A moist loaf cake with raisins, currants, cinnamon, and nutmeg, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Washington 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Line the cake pans with well-buttered paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the sour milk and eggs, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and flour.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  5. Dredge the raisins and currants in a little flour, then fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the top.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and keeps it moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the cake.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form; overmixing makes the loaf tough and dense, so stir only until no dry streaks remain.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin. 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.

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