Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Cake

A sweet, buttery cake with a crumbly topping of butter, sugar, cinnamon, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Add the sugar, egg, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk; mix well.

  3. Spread the batter evenly into a large deep tin pan.

Top and bake

  1. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and chopped almonds.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 to 20 minutes.

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 + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb and helps the cake brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.

The step that matters

Spread the batter evenly into the pan. An uneven layer bakes unevenly, so thin spots can dry out or burn while thick areas stay underdone. Leveling the batter gives an even rise and a uniform crumb.

“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.

More coffee cake recipes

German 56Filling 7Apple 4Chocolate 3Dutch 3 See all 347 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipes