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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A sweet cake flavored with coffee, spices, raisins, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and cocoa.

  3. Stir in the strong coffee, raisins, chopped walnuts, and eggs.

  4. Mix in the baking soda and enough sifted flour to create a stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Pour into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creamed with sugar it traps air for a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake once it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Strong coffee
Adds liquid and a deep, bitter aroma that complements the spices.

The step that matters

Mix in the baking soda and flour to a stiff batter. Baking soda needs to be evenly distributed to rise properly, and overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, making the cake tough. Stir just until the batter is smooth and uniform.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, coffee):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, coffee. 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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