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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A sweet cake made with raisins, coffee, molasses, and spices baked in a moderate oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cook the lard or Crisco, raisins, coffee, brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and salt in a saucepan for about five minutes.

  2. Once cooled, dissolve the baking soda in water.

  3. Add the dissolved baking soda along with the baking powder and flour. Beat the mixture well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to lift and darken the cake.
Baking powder
Adds extra lift so the cake rises evenly in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep sweetness with some acidity.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Let the cooked mixture cool before adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts quickly with acidic ingredients and is best added once the mixture has cooled, so that its lifting action is not lost to heat before the batter is set in the oven.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, coffee, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, 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.

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