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Dessert

Coffee Cakes

A sweet yeast-based cake flavored with sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and optional nuts and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Illustration of Coffee CakesIllustration

Why it works: Milk and coffee match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,201 recipes mention both. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the quick batter

  1. Combine one egg, one cup sugar, one tablespoon butter, one cup milk, two cups flour, one-half teaspoon salt, and two teaspoons baking powder.

  2. Flavor with nutmeg.

  3. Bake in a sheet pan.

  4. Before placing in oven sprinkle sugar, cinnamon, and bits of butter over the top.

Make the yeast dough

  1. Combine one pint milk, one-half cup sugar, one pint flour, one-half tablespoon salt, one yeast cake, one egg, and flour to stiffen.

  2. Set sponge with milk, flour, and yeast.

  3. When light, add sugar, salt, egg, and flour enough for dough not quite as stiff as bread.

  4. Work in one cup melted shortening, let rise till light, roll out three-fourths of an inch thick, and put in tins.

  5. When light, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  6. To four quarts flour add one pint lukewarm milk and two small cakes yeast.

  7. When raised, make a stiff dough.

  8. Take four eggs, two cups sugar, two cups butter, a tablespoon salt, and beat well.

  9. Add raisins to suit and three ounces shelled almonds.

  10. Let it rise once more, put in tins, and bake.

By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + coffeetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,201 recipes

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

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together30,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown on top.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce gas; rising too briefly leaves the cake dense, while the dough must be proofed before it is shaped and baked.

Flavor stand-ins for the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Cocoaabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, coffee, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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