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Dessert

German Coffee Cake

A coffee cake made with flour, baking soda, cold coffee, molasses, sugar, sour milk, shortening, ground coffee, ground spices, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

German Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour and baking soda.

  3. Add cold coffee, molasses, sugar, sour milk, shortening, ground coffee, and ground spices to the flour mixture.

  4. Stir until you have a stiff batter.

  5. Toss currants with a little flour to prevent sinking, then fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake slowly until done.

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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that promotes browning.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Shortening
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and moist.
English currants
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and fruit flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Toss currants with flour before folding. Flour-coated currants are less heavy and resist sinking to the bottom of the batter while it bakes, so they stay spread evenly through the cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, coffee, molasses, sugar, milk, meat):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, coffee, molasses, sugar, milk, meat. 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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