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Dessert

Crumb Coffee Cake Superb

A crumbly coffee cake with raisins, nuts, and spices baked in a buttered pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Crumb Coffee Cake Superb

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 crumb mixture

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sift together the flour, sugar, and spices.

  3. Work in the butter until crumbly, then set aside 1 cup of this mixture.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the beaten egg and sour milk, adding the baking soda and baking powder.

  2. Stir this mixture into the flour and butter mixture until just combined.

Bake and cool

  1. In a buttered 9x9x2-inch pan, sprinkle half of the reserved crumbs.

  2. Pour the batter over the crumbs and sprinkle with the remaining crumbs.

  3. Bake for 40 minutes.

  4. Let cool in the pan.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Worked into the flour to form crumbs and adds richness and tenderness.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with the leavening agents.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stirring the liquid into the flour mixture. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin. 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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