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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A layered cake with coffee-flavored batter, cream, and glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Prepare the cake batter

  1. Weigh 3 eggs and use the same weight for butter, castor sugar, and self-raising flour.

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then add the sugar and the yolks of the eggs (unbeaten). Mix well.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and mix until smooth.

  4. Sift in the flour while beating continuously.

  5. Add 2 teaspoons of coffee essence and mix well.

Bake and make the cream

  1. Prepare 2 round flat tins by lining them with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared tins and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. To make the cream, beat 1 pint of cream with 3 teaspoons of icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of coffee essence until thick.

  4. Once the cakes are completely cool, spread the cream between the two layers.

Glaze and finish

  1. In a soup plate, mix 3 tablespoons of icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of coffee essence with a little boiling water to create a glaze.

  2. Spread the glaze over the top of the cake.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Whole eggs and beaten whites give the cake its structure and lift.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives a tender, rich crumb.
Castor sugar
Beaten with butter, it creates air pockets and adds sweetness and browning.
Self-raising flour
Its built-in raising agent and gluten set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Cream
Whipped to thick, it adds moisture and richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Sift in the flour while beating continuously. Gentle, continuous mixing keeps the batter light; overbeating after the flour is added develops gluten and can make the cake tough.

“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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