Thursday, March 20, 2008

No Longer Top Secret! My Great-Great-Grandmother's Coffee Cake

This recipe is perfect for Easter morning, or any morning for that matter. The posting of this recipe will send shock waves through my family if they find out about it. I have no idea why, but the recipe was such a closely guarded secret that my grandmother didn't know my mother had it, and I had to steal it from my own mother. ;)

Of course, I am breaking that ridiculous tradition. My great-great-grandmother's coffee cake:






This recipe makes a very dense cake that is not overly sweet. The topping provides a wonderful, sweet bite with the cinnamon and sugar topping that melts and caramelizes with the butter as it bakes. It's a tradition that needs to be shared and enjoyed. The fact that it takes minutes to make is a plus.

The ingredients are basic.
For the cake:
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 Tbs sugar
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 2 Tbs melted butter
  • 1 cup milk
For the topping:
  • 2 Tbs flour
  • 2 Tbs cinnamon
  • 3 Tbs sugar
  • 3 Tbs butter

Sift the dry ingredients:


Add the melted butter and milk and stir with a wooden spoon:


The dough will be quite stiff and will pull away from the bowl and form a ball:


Press the dough into a greased cake pan:


Put the topping ingredients in a separate bowl:


With a fork, cut the topping ingredients until there are small pieces of crumble:



Sprinkle that on top of the cake dough and press indentions with your fingers so the topping will go down through the cake:


Bake for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Then, ditch the coffee. Pop open a bottle of champagne and make a mimosa!


Here's a toast! To my great-great-grandmother! May everyone now enjoy her simply wonderful, easy, delicious coffee cake!

Join me as I dine...

Paula

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh meeeeeeeeeeee
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyyy

What Have You Done
The secret is out - let's all have some fun.
This was what we all woke up to on Easter morning. We were not allowed to eat our treats until we ate our cake. This is very simple to make and delicious. In order to get the exact recipe you had to be in the kitchen. The recipe was always written on a recipe card except to get the recipe correct you had to watch and take notes.

Happy Easter and Happy Spring!

Much love, Sarah
P.S... Oh the memories of the other kind of cake and what we resorted to.(lol) HEE HEE

The Saucy Southerner said...

Well, being my sister and partner in crime in stealing recipes, I am sure you won't rat me out. :D

I intend to post that other recipe you mentioned...with the whole story...at some point.

Love you, Sarah!

Happy Easter!

Seitan Said Dance said...

That looks SO good! And very easily veganizable. Don't be surprised if you see a variation of your family recipe out of me in the next month (I need to use up my flour before Passover, so I'll be baking more than usual)!

The Saucy Southerner said...

Nothing would make me happier than to see you adapt and make this recipe!

Someone else said that it could be veganized easily. I hope she'll make it too.

I brought the cake in to work today and I've already eaten a piece...in addition to the one that I cut out of it last night. ;)

The Saucy Southerner said...

I had a friend email me to tell me she was making this coffee cake. She was worried about the 2 Tbs of cinnamon in the topping.

Her comment was that she had never used so much cinnamon in any recipe.

Trust me, it works with this very "old world" cake.

Linda said...

Paula... I love your blog. I'm from the Boston area, and think the idea of a food blog and a fly fishing shop sounds like heaven. Looking for something to do in retirement. That sounds like the ticket, since neither of us have any desire to stop entirely!!

Will try your g-g-gran'ma's cake tomorrow. Keep on blogging~

Linda

The Saucy Southerner said...

Thank you, Linda! I appreciate your comments. Fly fishing and food *are* a great combination!

I hope you enjoyed the coffee cake.

Paula