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Coffee Cake (One cup brown sugar cup)
One cup brown sugar, cup molasses, half cup butter, cup strong coffee, one egg or yolks of two, four even cups flour, heaping teaspoon soda in the flour, table-spoon cinnamon, tea-spoon cloves, two pounds raisins, fourth pound citron. Soften the butter, beat with the sugar, add the egg, spices, molasses, and coffee, then the flour, and lastly the fruit dredged with a little flour. Bake one hour in moderate oven, or make in two small loaves which will bake in a short time. This may be made without the egg. - Mrs. D. Buxton.
A spiced fruit loaf leavened with soda and sour-ish molasses, closer to a boiled fruitcake than to anything a modern reader means by "coffee cake." The batter is stiff and the fruit load is enormous, which governs almost every decision.
- The fruit is the hingeTwo pounds of raisins against four cups of flour means the loaf is mostly fruit held together by a little spiced dough. Dredging the raisins and citron in flour before folding them in is what keeps them suspended rather than sunk; do not skip it. If you want a sliceable cake rather than a fruit brick, one pound of raisins is a defensible reduction.
- "Moderate oven"Conventionally read as around 350F, though period "moderate" covered a range. At that heat a single loaf of this density will want the full hour and often longer; test with a skewer in the centre. Two smaller loaves, as the recipe suggests, will take considerably less.
- Soda, not baking powderThe heaping teaspoon of soda is activated by the molasses and coffee, both acidic. Sift it through the flour as directed rather than dissolving it in liquid, and get the batter into the pan promptly. There is no baking powder in the period recipe and none is needed.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold at holidays and by baking suppliers, not the fresh fruit and not lemon. A quarter pound is about 3/4 cup chopped. Candied orange or lemon peel substitutes acceptably.
- "Strong coffee"One cup of brewed coffee, made stronger than drinking strength. Cold or cooled is fine.
- Cups and poundsNineteenth-century American cups were generally close to the modern 8 fl oz, so the measures translate more or less directly, though period cups were not standardised. The molasses cup is unsulphured baking molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter in this quantity.
- Pans and yieldThe full quantity is more than a single 9x5-inch loaf pan will comfortably hold, so the recipe's alternative of two smaller loaves may suit better. Grease and line. Like most fruit loaves it slices better on the second day and keeps well wrapped for a week.
- The egg is optionalThe note is genuine: with this much fruit and molasses the loaf holds together without it. Egg-free, the crumb is denser and slightly more crumbly.
In American cookbooks of the 1870s and 80s, "coffee cake" usually meant a cake with coffee in it, not the sweet yeasted breakfast bread whose name is often traced to German Kaffeekuchen. Coffee here does the same work as strong tea or sour milk in other fruit cakes: it darkens the crumb, sharpens the molasses, and supplies the acid the soda needs. The Ohio compilation, the Centennial Buckeye Cook Book, appeared in Marysville in 1876, with Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping the 1877 issue; it was assembled from contributions by named local housewives, which is why this loaf carries Mrs. D. Buxton's name. A recipe calling for two pounds of raisins and candied citron was a special-occasion cake by the standards of the period.