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Dessert

Bread Coffee Cake

A yeasted cake with raisins, sugar, and spices baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bread Coffee Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  2. Add warm milk, butter, sugar, and allspice to the egg and mix well.

  3. Knead in the white flour until stiff after the mixture has risen to double its size.

  4. Incorporate the raisins into the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough as desired, either thick or thin.

  2. Brush the top with melted shortening.

  3. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top.

  4. Place in a pan and let rise until very light.

  5. Bake for 45 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
White flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and softens the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until very light. The rise traps gas that lightens the crumb. Dough that rises too little bakes dense, while dough that over-rises can collapse in the oven.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter, sugar, flour, raisin, cinnamon. 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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