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Coffee Cake
One teacupful of brown sugar, one of molasses, one of lukewarm strong coffee, one egg, one cupful of butter, one teaspoonful of soda, one pound of raisins. Use plenty of spice. This cake is much nicer for dipping in coffee if it is not cut until it is several days old.
XII. The Housewife's Table of Equivalents.
OFTEN in giving recipes-cup, wineglass, spoon, etc., are mentioned. It is the H usual way in which ladies measure, and the majority of the recipes we have given were furnished by ladies who are excellent cooks. The following table is one of equivalents that will be found approximately correct. Wheat flour-one pound is Indian meal-one pound two ounces are Butter, when soft-one pound is Loaf sugar, broken-one pound is White sugar, powdered-one pound one ounce are Best brown sugar-one pound two ounces are Ten eggs are Sixteen large tablespoonfuls are Eight large tablespoonfuls are Four large tablespoonfuls are • Two gills are Two pints are .
Four quarts are .
A common-sized tumbler holds A common-sized wineglass holds A large wineglass equal to . .
A tablespoonful equal to A teacup holds A large wineglass holds Forty drops are equal to One quart.
One quart.
One quart.
One quart.
One quart.
One quart.
One pound. .
One-half pint One gill.
One-half gill.
One-half pint.
Four teaspoonfuls are equal to One quart.
One gallon.
One-half pint.
One-half gill.
Two ounces.
One-half ounce.
One gill.
One gill.
One teaspoonful One tablespoonful.
A dark, heavily spiced molasses-and-raisin loaf of the type nineteenth-century American households kept on hand to eat with coffee. As printed it is a list of proportions rather than a set of instructions, and one key ingredient is missing.
- The flour is not givenNo quantity of flour appears anywhere in the entry, and without it the batter is unbakeable. Similar molasses cakes of the period commonly take something in the region of 3 to 3 1/2 cups of flour to this volume of liquid and sugar, but the original leaves the amount to the cook's judgement.
- What a teacupful means hereThe book's own table of equivalents, printed immediately after, says a teacup holds one gill, which is half a cup. That is smaller than the cup assumed in many later cake recipes, and smaller than the pound of raisins and cupful of butter in the same list would suggest. Treating the teacupfuls as ordinary cups, around 8 fl oz, gives proportions that work.
- Soda without other leaveningSoda here is bicarbonate of soda, modern baking soda; the period also used saleratus, a closely related leavener (originally potassium bicarbonate). One teaspoon is a reasonable amount for this much molasses, which supplies the acid it needs to work. Dissolve it in the warm coffee rather than adding it dry to the flour.
- "Plenty of spice"The standard mixture for a cake like this is cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Two teaspoons of cinnamon and a teaspoon each of the others is a fair reading of "plenty" for a loaf of this size.
- BakingNo oven or time is specified. A dense fruited loaf of this weight wants a moderate oven, 325 to 350F, in a lined loaf or tube pan, and something in the region of an hour to an hour and a quarter — test with a skewer rather than by the clock, since the molasses keeps the crumb moist and dark-looking even when set.
- The raisinsA full pound is a great deal of fruit for one loaf and it will sink unless it is tossed in a little of the measured flour before folding in. Nineteenth-century raisins were usually seeded at home; modern seedless raisins can be used straight from the box.
- The ageing instruction is realLeaving it several days before cutting is not sentiment. Molasses and dried fruit are both hygroscopic, and a few days wrapped tightly lets the moisture even out through the crumb; the firmer slice that results is presumably what makes it hold up to dipping.
- YieldOne large loaf, about 12 to 16 slices.
"Coffee cake" in an American book of this kind usually means what this one means: a cake made with coffee, or made to be eaten with it, rather than the German Kaffeekuchen \--the yeast-raised, streusel-topped bread that later took over the name in the United States. Strong coffee was a cheap way to darken and deepen a molasses cake, and cakes of this type appear in numerous community and household cookbooks of the later nineteenth century, generally alongside the same cast of ingredients found here: brown sugar, molasses, soda, a pound of raisins and a free hand with spice. The direction to leave it uncut for several days marks it as a keeping cake. The stray line about an English country house in brick with stone trimmings is not part of the recipe; it appears to be a caption from an illustration plate that has drifted into the text, the sort of accident that can happen in general-purpose home volumes binding cookery, house plans, etiquette and medical hints between the same covers.