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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A moist cake made with eggs, molasses, sugar, butter, raisins, currants, coffee, flour, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the beaten eggs, molasses, sugar, and butter.

  3. Stir in the chopped raisins, currants, and cold strong coffee.

  4. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours, 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that promotes browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic coffee and molasses to lift the batter as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the cake moist and browned.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in stages and stirring only until combined keeps gluten development controlled, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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