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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A moist cake flavored with coffee, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, raisins, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the softened butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the egg (or egg yolks), molasses, strong coffee, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda; mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour until combined.

  4. Dredge the raisins and citron in a little flour, then fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps give the cake a soft, tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to help the cake rise and darken.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dredge the raisins and citron in flour before folding. Flour coating helps the fruit stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during baking.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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