Skip to main content
Dessert

Raisin Coffee Cake

A yeasted cake with raisins, baked at 350°F, topped with butter, powdered sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Raisin 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 dough

  1. Combine scalded milk, shortening, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Mix in the dissolved yeast cake and enough flour to form a stiff batter. Beat thoroughly.

  3. Cover and let rise in a warm place overnight.

  4. Blend in the beaten egg.

  5. Add the raisins.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the mixture on a floured surface to ½ inch thick.

  2. Place in a buttered biscuit pan.

  3. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

  4. Brush with melted butter.

  5. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 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

Flour
Forms the stiff batter and gives the cake its structure as it bakes.
Yeast cake
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough for a tender crumb.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and feeds the yeast during rising.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time and warmth to build gas; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its structure.

“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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes