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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A moist cake made with brown sugar, butter, eggs, molasses, coffee, spices, raisins, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Coffee 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  3. Beat in the eggs, then mix in the molasses and cold coffee.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and sifted flour.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the raisins or currants, dusted with a little flour.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter hold together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Sifted flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a darker color to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the cake and adds moisture and a caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in stages and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cake tough. Overmixing also traps less air evenly, affecting rise.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, molasses, coffee, cinnamon, raisin. 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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