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Dessert

Fruit or Coffee Cake

A moist cake made with flour, molasses, coffee, milk, butter, sugar, raisins, currants, citrus peel, spices, and caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Fruit or Coffee 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a baking pan with greased paper.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until creamy.

  2. Add the molasses and the beaten egg, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add the flour and baking powder mixture, alternating with the coffee and milk.

  4. Fold in the raisins, currants, lemon peel, orange peel, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and caramel.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the pan.

  2. Bake for 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the cake its structure.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust while tenderizing the crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour and baking powder mixture, alternating with the coffee and milk. Adding dry and liquid ingredients in alternating portions lets the flour hydrate evenly without overworking the gluten, keeping the crumb tender rather than tough.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, molasses, coffee, sugar, raisin, currant, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, coffee, sugar, raisin, currant, 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.

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