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Dessert

Coffee Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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. 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the strong coffee, sugar, molasses, and butter or lard until well combined.

  2. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

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

  4. Fold in the raisins or the mixture of raisins and currants.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and coffee acids to help the cake rise and darken.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spice flavors.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stir only until the flour disappears so the crumb stays tender.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, sugar, molasses, butter, flour, clove, 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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