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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, brown sugar, coffee, raisins, spices, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 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).

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the strong coffee and mix well.

  3. Stir in the chopped raisins, baking soda, cloves, allspice, and ginger.

  4. Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff.

  5. Beat in the eggs until fully incorporated.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for about 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and with the butter helps create a soft crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Builds the structure of the batter so the cake holds its shape while baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the batter to help the cake rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff. Adding flour in stages lets you judge the batter's consistency; too much flour at once can make the cake dense and tough, while too little leaves it wet and weak in structure.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, coffee, clove, allspice, ginger, flour. 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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