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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A moist cake made with coffee or sour milk, molasses, brown sugar, butter, spices, baking soda, currants, raisins, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the drawn coffee (or sour milk), molasses, dark brown sugar, and butter until well combined.

  3. Add the egg, ground cloves, ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and baking soda. Mix thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the currants and raisins.

  5. Gradually add flour until you achieve a medium stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic coffee or sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds richness, tenderness and flavor to the crumb.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour to a medium stiff batter. Adding flour gradually and stopping at a medium stiff consistency keeps the batter from becoming overworked and tough, while ensuring enough structure to hold the fruit and rise evenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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