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Dessert

Coffee Cakes

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, molasses, coffee, raisins, pastry flour, egg, baking soda, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Coffee Cakes

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 Cakes

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Stir in the molasses and strong coffee.

  4. Add the chopped raisins, pastry flour, egg, baking soda, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon. Mix until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into small tins.

  2. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cakes a tender crumb.
Pastry flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Chopped raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Small tins bake quickly, and the batter's leavening works best while it is in the oven. Pulling the cakes too early leaves a gummy, sunken centre, while overbaking dries them out. The toothpick test shows when the structure has set.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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