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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Loaf-cake

A cocoa-nut loaf cake made with butter, milk, eggs, flour, sugar, lemon, cocoa-nut, baking powder, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Loaf-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks and beat until very light.

  3. Mix in the milk, then add the flour and lemon, and beat well.

  4. Stir in the grated cocoa-nut.

  5. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and sift the baking powder over them.

  6. Add the egg whites to the batter at the last moment and mix lightly but thoroughly.

Prepare and bake

  1. Prepare 2 loaf pans lined with thin paper and greased with lard.

  2. Divide the batter between the pans, filling them no more than two-thirds full.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  4. If the cake browns too quickly, cover it with thick paper.

Finish and cool

  1. When done, remove from the oven and cover the top with fresh grated cocoa-nut and sifted powdered sugar.

  2. Set on a sieve to cool and handle very carefully.

  3. Remove the paper when cool.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whipped whites give the batter lift and an airy, light crumb, while yolks add richness.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps create a light, aerated batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the loaf together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the loaf rise and become light.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds moisture, body and coconut flavour to the crumb and topping.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites are mixed in at the last moment and only lightly, so the air they hold is not knocked out. Overmixing deflates the froth and produces a dense loaf instead of a light one.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, milk, sugar, flour, egg, nutmeg. 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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