Coffee Cake
One cup cold strong coffee, 1 cup molasses, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter or substitute, 4 cups flour (sifted), 1 cup raisins, 1 tsp. soda; Slade's cloves, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. Bake 40 minutes.
— Mrs. Raymond L. Middlemas
A molasses-and-spice loaf leavened only by soda reacting with the molasses and coffee. The original gives no pan, no temperature and no spice quantities, so those are the gaps to fill.
- Oven temperatureNone is given, which in a community cookbook of this kind usually means the cook already knew. Forty minutes suits 350F in a 9x13 sheet pan or two 8-inch rounds; a single loaf pan at 350F will need closer to an hour.
- Slade's spicesD. & L. Slade Co. of Boston sold ground spices and extracts in tins and was a familiar name in New England kitchens. Any good ground cloves, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg substitute directly.
- Spice amounts are unstatedThe recipe names four spices without quantities. For this volume of batter, roughly 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp each allspice and nutmeg and 1/4 tsp cloves is in keeping with similar cakes of the period, but the original genuinely leaves it to the cook.
- "Butter or substitute"The substitute of the day was lard, oleomargarine or a hydrogenated shortening. Butter gives the best flavour here; if using shortening, add a pinch of salt, since the recipe includes none.
- Soda, not baking powderOne teaspoon of soda is the only leavening and it depends on the acidity of the molasses and coffee. Dissolve it in the coffee, mix quickly once the flour goes in, and get the batter into the oven before the reaction spends itself.
- MolassesUse unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, which is markedly more bitter than what was sold as cooking molasses. Sorghum syrup also works.
- Flouring the raisinsToss the cup of raisins with a spoonful of the measured flour before folding them in, or they will settle to the bottom of a batter this loose.
- Yield and keepingAbout 16 squares from a 9x13 pan. Like most molasses cakes it improves on the second day and keeps well wrapped for the better part of a week.
- No coffee flavour to speak ofThe coffee here works as an acid and a darkening liquid rather than a flavouring. Do not expect a mocha cake; brew the coffee genuinely strong if you want it to register at all.
"Coffee cake" in an American church cookbook of this vintage usually means what this one is: a cake with coffee in it, rather than the sweet breakfast bread with streusel that also went by the name. Cold leftover coffee was a thrifty stand-in for milk in spiced molasses cakes, and the pairing of molasses, soda and a heavy hand with cloves and allspice runs straight through nineteenth-century New England baking. The Slade's brand named in the ingredient list belonged to D. & L. Slade Co. of Boston, a spice and extract house whose tins were common enough in the region that a contributor could name it as shorthand for ordinary ground spice. Philathea cook books were compiled by Philathea classes, the young women's Bible classes of the Baraca-Philathea Sunday school movement, which originated in a Baptist congregation but spread across denominations, and sold to raise money for the class; the recipes are signed because the neighbours who bought the book knew the cooks.