Coffee Cake, ancient
Nov. 6th, 2025 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
czedwardsThis is my great-grandmother’s coffee cake, reduced from feeding an entire Women’s Auxiliary (for whatever org) or a dozen farmhands or three hungry teenagers. She made it in a pair of 9x13s, I have brought it down to a 9x9 pan because I do not have teenagers or farmhands. It doubles and triples beautifully.
Turn on the oven and start pre-heating to 350°F.
For the cake:
1 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (113 grams) butter
2 eggs
1 cup (120 grams) flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (123 grams) milk
For the filling and topping:
1/2 cup (106 grams) brown sugar
2 tablespoons (16 grams) cinnamon (but feel free to start at one tablespoon/8 grams and adjust to taste. I am a cinnamon fiend, so I like a lot)
3 tablespoons (44 grams) butter, very soft
1/4 cup (25 grams) flour
Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon well, divide in half. Mix in the butter and flour to one half until it makes a decent crumb, and set aside.
Her recipe said bring everything to room temp; the butter does need to be room temp. Grease and flour a 9-inch square or round baking pan.
Cream (beat well) together the sugar and butter. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well each time. Slowly add the flour, baking powder, and salt (you can premix these, but with a good mixer, you don’t have to.)
Finally, slowly add the milk. Mix until well combined. (Hers said to not over-mix, but I actually don’t know what she meant. I don’t see any difference in how it bakes with 2 minutes or 10 minutes of mixing. Probably don’t leave it mixing for an hour?)
This recipe weighs about 530-540 grams (depends on your eggs) so get out your digital scale and pour half (about 265 grams) into the greased baking pan.
Sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar mix (not the one with butter and flour) on top, as evenly as possible.
Drop the remaining batter on top of the filling in small spoonfuls, trying to get it as even as possible. Then sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top.
Bake for 35-40 minutes (toothpick/knife blade comes out clean or with only sugar and cinnamon on it) and allow to cool. Keep covered after it cools.
Substitutions: feel free to swap the milk for sour cream, buttermilk, or half-yogurt, half milk. One to one gluten free flour should work, but I haven’t tested it. Unflavored and unsweetened oat milk or almond milk would probably be the best non-dairy substitution.
Standard margarine would be the butter replacement, not vegan spreads. Standard margarine is vegan.
For brown sugar, you can mix 1 or 2 tablespoons of molasses with plain granulated or light turbinado sugar to make brown sugar — 1 tablespoon for light brown sugar, two for dark. I’d probably use 35 grams of applesauce and 7 grams of chia seed whisked into 3 tablespoons of water as a vegan egg replacer, but I cannot guarantee outcome.
Additions: She would often make one with raisins for big events, just threw in a handful. Same with nuts. Occasionally, she’d sub cherry or strawberry jam for the brown-sugar cinnamon and make plain streusel topping (no or very little cinnamon). Feel free to get creative. If you would prefer maple-brown sugar to molasses brown, you can sub dark maple syrup for the molasses to make maple-brown sugar. It will change the flavor a little.
Noting here that the base cake is also what she called Cheap Cake, it’s a very basic yellow cake that is perfect for snacking, for berry shortcake, an impromptu dessert or celebration, or as the cake batter to go over jarred/cooked fruit for Dump Cake or cheater’s cobbler. As a cake, it usually baked for 30 minutes, about 45 minutes for cobblers.
Turn on the oven and start pre-heating to 350°F.
For the cake:
1 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (113 grams) butter
2 eggs
1 cup (120 grams) flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (123 grams) milk
For the filling and topping:
1/2 cup (106 grams) brown sugar
2 tablespoons (16 grams) cinnamon (but feel free to start at one tablespoon/8 grams and adjust to taste. I am a cinnamon fiend, so I like a lot)
3 tablespoons (44 grams) butter, very soft
1/4 cup (25 grams) flour
Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon well, divide in half. Mix in the butter and flour to one half until it makes a decent crumb, and set aside.
Her recipe said bring everything to room temp; the butter does need to be room temp. Grease and flour a 9-inch square or round baking pan.
Cream (beat well) together the sugar and butter. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well each time. Slowly add the flour, baking powder, and salt (you can premix these, but with a good mixer, you don’t have to.)
Finally, slowly add the milk. Mix until well combined. (Hers said to not over-mix, but I actually don’t know what she meant. I don’t see any difference in how it bakes with 2 minutes or 10 minutes of mixing. Probably don’t leave it mixing for an hour?)
This recipe weighs about 530-540 grams (depends on your eggs) so get out your digital scale and pour half (about 265 grams) into the greased baking pan.
Sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar mix (not the one with butter and flour) on top, as evenly as possible.
Drop the remaining batter on top of the filling in small spoonfuls, trying to get it as even as possible. Then sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top.
Bake for 35-40 minutes (toothpick/knife blade comes out clean or with only sugar and cinnamon on it) and allow to cool. Keep covered after it cools.
Substitutions: feel free to swap the milk for sour cream, buttermilk, or half-yogurt, half milk. One to one gluten free flour should work, but I haven’t tested it. Unflavored and unsweetened oat milk or almond milk would probably be the best non-dairy substitution.
Standard margarine would be the butter replacement, not vegan spreads. Standard margarine is vegan.
For brown sugar, you can mix 1 or 2 tablespoons of molasses with plain granulated or light turbinado sugar to make brown sugar — 1 tablespoon for light brown sugar, two for dark. I’d probably use 35 grams of applesauce and 7 grams of chia seed whisked into 3 tablespoons of water as a vegan egg replacer, but I cannot guarantee outcome.
Additions: She would often make one with raisins for big events, just threw in a handful. Same with nuts. Occasionally, she’d sub cherry or strawberry jam for the brown-sugar cinnamon and make plain streusel topping (no or very little cinnamon). Feel free to get creative. If you would prefer maple-brown sugar to molasses brown, you can sub dark maple syrup for the molasses to make maple-brown sugar. It will change the flavor a little.
Noting here that the base cake is also what she called Cheap Cake, it’s a very basic yellow cake that is perfect for snacking, for berry shortcake, an impromptu dessert or celebration, or as the cake batter to go over jarred/cooked fruit for Dump Cake or cheater’s cobbler. As a cake, it usually baked for 30 minutes, about 45 minutes for cobblers.
