I am not a baker.
Kind of like my big whinge on chocolate mousse day, sometimes in this blog we get assigned days we’d rather … um … avoid. Like coffee cake day. I was chatting with Mom while I threw this together and she said, “I’m 57 years old and I’ve never made a coffee cake” (sorry for outing your age, Mom!). That’s my point. Who the hell makes coffee cake in this day and age?
Unlike chocolate mousse day, however, I decided I’d actually make the coffee cake. So I researched coffee cake recipes. And coffee cake history, which I figured would be rife with Roman invasions or at least Dark Ages housekeeping tips.
Alas.
The best I could come up with was a chapter from Jim Fobel’s Old Fashioned Baking Book, where he said in favour of “quick breads, coffee cakes and muffins” that they are “quickly and easily prepared. Most can be put together from ingredients on hand, and many provide a delectable way to use a surplus of fruit…”
So I guess that’s the history, folks. Coffee cake is easy. And it goes well with coffee. Except when, like me, you decide to complicate things.
It started out so well.
I started with joy of cooking’s “Quick Sour Cream Coffee Cake” (because it seemed easy). I decided the recipe wasn’t “fancy” enough so I modified away, using their “Deluxe Raspberry Almond Coffee Cake” as inspiration. Lifted entirely without permission, here’s the recipe (with my modifications):
Preheat oven to 350°
Filling:
• stir 1/2 C raspberry jam until fluid & set aside
• mix together 3/4 C ground, blanched almonds; 1/2 C sugar, 1 large egg yolk; 1 tsp almond extract. Blend well with a fork and then your fingers until uniform in colour
Cake:
• Grease a 9-inch square cake pan (Eva: not pretty enough. I’m going with a tube pan)
• Whisk together thoroughly: 1 1/2 C flour; 1 C sugar; 2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp baking soda; 1/4 tsp salt
• Beat well in a large bowl: 1 C sour cream; 2 large eggs
• beat dry ingredients into wet until just blended
Build:
• crumble half of almond mixture onto bottom of tube pan
• top with half of cake batter and smooth
• top with stirred jam
• top jam with remainder of almond mixture, then remainder of cake batter
• smooth again
• bake for … well maybe 40 minutes? Then top with melted jam mixed with 1 tsp almond extract
Aside from just hugely complicating the recipe with the filling, my issue was the baking time. Okay, they were the same issue. I didn’t want my cake to dry out, so I kept re-setting the timer for 3 minutes. Then 5 minutes. Then 3 minutes. I have no idea how long I baked the cake, but it wasn’t long enough. The cake was tasty, but… puddingy. As in, not cooked long enough.
Not my best effort. But then again, no one accused me of being a pastry chef.
~ Eva
11 comments
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April 7, 2010 at 6:19 AM
Dea
Maybe bring it to work? people at work will eat anything! 😉 (I think we should make B do all the baking on this list… she’s the only one of us who doesn’t mess it up!)
D
April 7, 2010 at 9:33 AM
Eva
You know, I don’t think I’d even inflict this particular cake on my colleagues. After looking at it on my counter for a couple of days, its only destination is the “G” file. In my defence, the stupid recipe said “bake for 25 minutes”. I baked for MUCH longer. The filling recipe, coincidentally, gave no instructions on which coffee cakes it could or could NOT be used in. I think J of C actually let me down here.
And I’m not a baker.
* sigh *
xx Eva
April 7, 2010 at 7:14 AM
365foods
See? Still mean! Still pretty! A pox I say, a pox!
B
April 7, 2010 at 10:06 AM
Sage
Aww, I should have done coffee cake for you. L was so disappointed that I switched days that I baked him a coffee cake anyway! And it was good!
April 7, 2010 at 10:06 AM
Sage
Also, Coffee Cake is the precursor to N.America’s obsession with donuts. That is all.
April 7, 2010 at 10:26 AM
Jen S
I use that recipe sometimes and, like you Eva, I always end up resetting and resetting the timer for ages and it takes forever to bake. 25 minutes my ass!
April 7, 2010 at 10:28 AM
Jen S
(I use wholewheat flour and sub yogurt for the sour cream and call it healthy.)
April 7, 2010 at 1:36 PM
Andrea
I would have eaten all of it.
April 7, 2010 at 2:04 PM
Brenda
Oh no Eva…..I feel your pain. I’m not a baker either…..and I don’t give a flying eff, SO THERE. My last attempt at “baking” effing cream puffs (posative that SATAN created the bloody recipe) ended with me, on the kitchen floor in tears, with a pot of crappy nastyness on my lap. Next time a certain family member asks me to make a “cake or something” for her stupid dinner party, I’ll be checking for the monkeys the MUST be flying out of me arss before I agree.
Much luv ladies BK
April 7, 2010 at 9:10 PM
Janelle
Ummm . . . I still make coffee cake in this day and age. 😉
April 8, 2010 at 9:39 PM
Deb
In England, coffee cake is really that – cake flavoured with coffee, with creamy coffee icing. My mum makes a killer one – it was a staple food when I was a delinquent teenager (that and tuna out of the can – nutritious and delicious!)!
Eva, I applaud your inventiveness with jazzing up the recipe. And it was pink too – go girl!!!
Hugs,
Deb