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Dessert

Loaf Cake

A sweet loaf cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, molasses, butter, milk, raisins, citron, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Loaf Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

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

  2. Mix in the molasses and spices, then add the beaten eggs.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Dredge the raisins and citron in 1 cup of flour, then mix them into the batter along with the remaining flour.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and carries flavour through the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the butter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a rich, sweet-bitter flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly distributed so it reacts with the acidic molasses throughout the batter. Unevenly mixed soda can leave bitter, soapy patches and uneven rising.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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

Chocolate 35French 25Raisin 19Indian 17Coconut 16Plain 13 See all 114 →

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