Name: Coffee Cake
Ingredients: ½ lb butter (or dripping); 1 cup sugar; ⅓ cup Golden Syrup; 1 large cup strong coffee; 1 lb flour (or 2 breakfast cups); 2 heaped teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon ground ginger; A few raisins and peel; A little spice or nutmeg

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Warm the Golden Syrup.
Mix the warmed Golden Syrup with the strong coffee.
Add the coffee mixture to the creamed butter and sugar.
Sift in the flour and add the spices, raisins, and peel.
Beat in the baking powder.

Bake

Pour the batter into a baking pan.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 2 hours.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb and brown the crust.
Golden syrup: Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep flavour that keeps the cake soft.
Strong coffee: Adds liquid for moisture and a rich, slightly bitter coffee flavour.
Flour: Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.

Swap the ginger

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

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovefits about as well
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, syrup, coffee, flour, raisin, nutmeg. 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.