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Baking

Coffee Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, coffee, flour, raisins, currants, citron, baking soda, cream of tartar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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

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).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Mix in the molasses and strong coffee until well combined.

  4. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and spices.

Make the batter

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

  2. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and a dark color to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise and keeps it tender.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Stirring only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, coffee, flour, raisin, cream. 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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