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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A moist cake made with sugar, molasses, butter, coffee, flour, raisins, 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Stir in the molasses and strong coffee.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, ground cloves, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing well.

  5. Fold in the raisins and the egg until fully incorporated.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as the batter bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to lift the batter as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with mild acidity.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a tender, browned crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing well.. Adding flour in portions and mixing just until combined keeps the batter smooth and prevents overworking, which would make the cake tough.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, butter, coffee, flour, egg, 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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