Home › Cakes › Coffee Loaf Cake
Coffee Loaf Cake
1/3 cup butter. 1/2 cup sugar. 1/2 cup molasses. 1/2 cup strong coffee 1 egg 1 cup seeded raisins 2 cups flour ¾ teaspoon soda Beat the butter and sugar to a cream; add the molasses, then the beaten egg and coffee. Wash and drain the raisins; dredge with flour and add to the mixture; then add the sifted flour and soda. Beat well and pour into a deep, greased pan. Bake about one hour.
A plain molasses-and-coffee loaf of the sort that filled the space between everyday bread and a frosted layer cake. The printed ingredient list here is incomplete, so read the method carefully before you shop.
- Missing quantitiesThe method calls for butter, sugar and molasses, but the list as printed gives none of them. Comparable loaf cakes of the period run to roughly 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup molasses for two cups of flour; the original leaves this genuinely unstated rather than merely abbreviated.
- "34 teaspoon soda"This is a misprint for 3/4 teaspoon. Soda is the only leavening here, working against the acidity of the molasses and coffee, so it is not optional.
- Oven temperatureNone is given; the recipe says only "Bake about one hour." For an hour in a deep pan, a modern 325 to 350F is a reasonable starting point.
- Pan and donenessA "deep, greased pan" suggests a loaf-shaped pan; a 9 by 5 inch tin is a reasonable modern choice. Molasses browns early, so test with a skewer at the centre rather than trusting the colour of the crust.
- Strong coffeeBrewed coffee, stronger than you would drink it, and cooled: hot coffee added to a creamed butter mixture can melt the butter and split the batter.
- Dredging the raisinsTossing the drained raisins in flour keeps them suspended rather than sinking to the bottom. Modern packaged raisins need no washing, but they should be dry before they meet the flour.
- YieldOne loaf, about ten to twelve slices. Loaves of this kind are generally said to cut better the day after baking.
Coffee turns up in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cake recipes for the same reason molasses and sour milk do: it was in the house, it was cheap, and its slight acidity gave baking soda something to react with. Loaf cakes like this one sit in a long American tradition of dark, spiceless, fruited cakes baked in a bread pan and kept on hand for tea or a lunch pail, distinct from the butter-and-egg-rich layer cakes that dominate the front of most cake chapters.