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Dessert

Scotch Loaf Cake

A moist loaf cake made with butter, flour, eggs, raisins, sugar, lemon, brandy, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Loaf Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, lemon rind and juice, baking soda mixed with milk, brandy, and flour. Mix well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. In a large tin, layer the batter and raisins alternately.

  2. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Egg whites folded in add lift and a light, airy crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, adding richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Raisins
Layered through the batter, adding chewy pockets of sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the lemon to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air from whipping, and stirring them vigorously knocks that air out. Fold gently so the cake stays light and rises evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, raisin, sugar, milk, wine. 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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