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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A moist cake flavored with coffee, molasses, raisins, and nuts, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. 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 the batter

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

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

  3. Add the eggs, molasses, and coffee, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves.

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

  6. Fold in the chopped raisins and nuts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Coffee + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and caramel notes to the crumb.

The step that matters

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

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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