Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Cake

A sweet cake flavored with coffee, molasses, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the eggs, molasses, and cold coffee; mix well.

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

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

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

  6. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and creating a soft crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and color, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a caramel flavor while softening the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding them gradually and stirring only until combined keeps the batter smooth. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

More coffee cake recipes

German 56Filling 7Apple 4Chocolate 3Dutch 3 See all 347 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes