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Eggless Coffee Cake
One cup of cold coffee, one cup of molasses, one cup of sugar, one cup of butter, one cup of raisins, four and one-half cups of flour, one teaspoon cloves, one teaspoon nutmeg, one teaspoon cinnamon, one teaspoon soda.
— Mrs. Fannie Ward
A spice cake in the old "cup of each" pattern, leavened only by soda reacting with molasses and coffee. The ingredient list is complete but the method is missing entirely, so the assembly is left to the cook.
- Method, since none is givenCream the butter and sugar, beat in the molasses and cold coffee, then add the flour sifted with the soda and spices; fold in the floured raisins last. The batter will be thick but spoonable rather than pourable.
- Butter quantityOne cup is 8 oz, two sticks. That is a great deal of fat for four and a half cups of flour, and the cake will be dense and long-keeping rather than light.
- Soda and molassesThe single teaspoon of soda is the only leavening, and it depends on the acidity of the molasses to work. Use unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap and not sorghum syrup, and get the cake into the oven promptly once the soda is wet.
- "Coffee cake" here means coffeeThis is not the German-style crumb-topped breakfast cake. Cold brewed coffee is an actual ingredient, used for its bitterness and colour alongside the molasses.
- Oven and panNo temperature or time is given; a modern oven at 325-350F suits the style. The batter fills a 9x13 pan or two loaf tins; expect 45 minutes to an hour, longer in loaves, and test with a skewer since the molasses keeps the crumb moist-looking.
- SpicesThree teaspoons of ground spice total is assertive but correct for the style. Nutmeg grated fresh makes a noticeable difference; pre-ground cloves from an old jar will taste of nothing but dust.
- RaisinsToss them in a spoonful of the measured flour before folding in, or they sink. Ordinary dark raisins are fine.
- Yield and keepingAbout 16 generous squares. Like most molasses cakes it improves after a day wrapped in a tin, and it slices better cold.
Eggless cakes appear throughout American community cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, well before wartime rationing made them famous, simply because eggs were seasonal and expensive when hens stopped laying in winter. Molasses did double duty in such receipts: it supplied sweetness, moisture and the acid the soda needed, so the cake rose without eggs or baking powder. Leftover coffee was a thrifty liquid that reinforced the dark, spiced character, and the same combination of coffee, molasses, spice and raisins turns up under names like "poor man's cake." The measurement by cupfuls, with no oven temperature and no method, is typical of such community collections, where a contributor could assume every reader already knew how to put a cake together.