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 ↓
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Stir in the coffee and molasses.
In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.
Fold in the chopped raisins and nuts.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Coffee + nutstop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together105 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together490 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and binding, and help the batter set as it bakes.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Molasses
- Adds moisture, depth of flavour and a darker colour to the cake.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and mixing only until combined limits gluten development. Overmixing can make the cake tough and dense.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, coffee, flour, molasses, raisin):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Nutsthe original
- Walnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, coffee, flour, molasses, 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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