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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A yeast-leavened loaf cake with cinnamon, currant jelly, nutmeg, citron, raisins, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Loaf Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Stir together 2 quarts of flour, 1 pint of slightly warmed milk, and 1 tablespoon of yeast in a large bowl.

  2. Place the mixture near a warm area to rise until light and fluffy.

  3. Mix in 4 beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, ⅓ cup of currant jelly, 1 grated nutmeg, and chipped citron.

Make the dough

  1. Cream together 1 pound of sugar and ¾ pound of softened butter until light and fluffy in another bowl.

  2. Combine the butter mixture with the flour mixture.

  3. Add 1 quart of sifted flour.

  4. Beat the entire mixture by hand for 10 to 15 minutes.

  5. Let the mixture rise again until spongy.

Bake

  1. Fold in 1½ pounds of raisins just before transferring to the pans.

  2. Pour the batter into buttered cake pans.

  3. Let the pans stand for 15 to 20 minutes before baking.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake batter.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and become light and spongy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the finished cake.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Beating the dough by hand for 10 to 15 minutes. Vigorous beating develops gluten in the flour, giving the dough the elasticity to trap gas and hold its rise, which sets the final crumb.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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