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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A sweet almond loaf cake made with butter, sugar, flour, milk, baking powder, almond extract, chopped almonds, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, sifting it in.

  2. Stir in ½ cup of milk.

  3. Sift 3 cups of flour, then sift it again with 2 tablespoons of baking powder, and add to the mixture.

  4. Flavor with a little almond extract and fold in the chopped almonds.

  5. Beat the mixture thoroughly, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Line a deep cake pan with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 to 45 minutes.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 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 + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to add lift and a light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Chopped almonds
Add nutty flavor and a bit of texture to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, fine-textured crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to foam; overmixing or stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so the cake rises less and turns dense. Fold gently and keep the batter's air intact.

“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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