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Dessert

Cold Water Cake

A cake made with butter, flour, baking powder, raisins, spices, brown sugar, coffee, water, and egg whites.

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 ↓

Cold Water Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the butter mixture.

  3. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins and spices.

  5. Add the cold coffee and cold water, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a tin lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the cake lift and a light crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter and oven heat, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the creamed base.
Brown sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness and a moist, slightly molasses-flavoured crumb.
Chopped raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks; overmixing when folding deflates them, leaving a denser cake with less rise.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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