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Dessert

Coffee Cakes

A small cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, and coffee essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Coffee Cakes

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Coffee Cakes

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

  1. Whisk the eggs, sugar, and coffee essence together in a bowl until frothy and thick.

  2. Melt the butter and stir it in lightly.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Grease about ten small cake tins with clarified butter.

  2. Fill the tins three-quarters full with the batter.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about fifteen minutes.

  4. Let the cakes cool.

  5. Icing with coffee glace icing, if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whisked with sugar, they trap air and give the cakes their light, airy structure.
Flour
Sets the cake's structure as the batter bakes, holding the risen crumb in place.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cakes rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps whisk the eggs into a stable, thick foam.
Coffee essence
Gives the cakes their coffee flavour throughout the batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the flour and baking powder gently. Overmixing knocks out the air whisked into the eggs and develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cakes dense instead of light and airy.

“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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