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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A moist cake flavored with coffee, molasses, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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

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).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar, molasses, and spices until well combined.

  3. Add the egg and strong brewed coffee, mixing until smooth.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and moist texture.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness with mild acidity.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as the batter bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the cake structure and a firm set.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic molasses and cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.. Mixing dry ingredients in gradually and stopping once combined keeps the batter from overdeveloping gluten, which would make the cake tough and dense.

“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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