Coffee Cake
1 teacup of molasses. 1 cupful of good liquid coffee. 1 cupful sugar. 1 cupful butter. 4 cupfuls flour. 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon. 1 teaspoonful cloves. 1 teaspoonful cream tartar. 1/2 teaspoonful soda. 1 pound of raisins. 1/4 pound of citron. 3 eggs. 1/2 wine-glass of brandy.--Mrs. J.H.F.
A contributor's recipe given as a bare ingredient list, as was common in this book — the method is assumed. Treat it as a creamed spice-and-fruit loaf, not the German coffee-time cake the name suggests today.
- The nameThe coffee is an ingredient, not an accompaniment. "Good liquid coffee" means strong brewed coffee, cooled; it darkens the crumb and deepens the molasses more than it tastes of coffee.
- Teacup vs. cupfulThe recipe uses both terms, though period cookbooks were not always consistent about the distinction. A teacup in period American usage is usually reckoned at about 3/4 cup (6 fl oz); a cupful is 8 fl oz. A wine-glass is generally taken as about 2 fl oz, so half a wine-glass is roughly 1 fl oz, about 2 tablespoons of brandy.
- Method, since none is givenCream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then add molasses, coffee and brandy alternately with the flour sifted with the spices and cream of tartar. Dissolve the soda in a spoonful of the coffee and add last.
- The leavening pairCream of tartar plus soda is a homemade baking powder; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar to 1/2 teaspoon soda is about the usual 2:1 proportion, with the molasses and coffee adding further acid. Get the batter into the pan promptly once the soda goes in.
- FruitA full pound of raisins and a quarter pound of citron in four cups of flour is a heavy load. Toss the fruit with a few spoonfuls of the measured flour before folding it in, or it will sink.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in the same aisle as glace fruit around the holidays; in nineteenth-century America this could be the peel of the citron citrus or of the citron melon. Candied lemon or orange peel substitutes without much loss.
- Oven and panNo temperature is given. A cake this dense and sweet wants a moderate oven, 325–350F, in a tube pan or two loaf pans lined with parchment, roughly 1 to 1 1/4 hours for loaves. Test with a skewer; the molasses keeps it looking underdone longer than it is.
- Yield and keepingAbout two 9-inch loaves, or one large tube cake. Like other fruited molasses cakes it is generally reckoned to improve after a day or two wrapped tightly, and it keeps for several days.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1877), edited by Marion Cabell Tyree, was assembled from recipes sent in by named and initialled contributors, which is why this one arrives as a list of quantities and a signature with no instructions. "Coffee cake" in some nineteenth-century American books meant a cake of this sort -- dark, spiced and fruit-filled, made with brewed coffee -- as distinct from the German Kaffeekuchen sense that later became dominant in the United States; the term was not used consistently in the period. The coffee supplies liquid along with colour and depth in a cake made without chocolate. The pound of raisins and quarter pound of citron suggest a holiday or company cake rather than everyday baking.