Existential Question – Is a Bundt a Coffee Cake?
Or, more generally, what is the precise definition of Coffee Cake?…………..
Today is National Coffee Cake Day and, I’d be remiss in not “celebrating”. I am a longtime devotee of coffeecakes – beginning with those many, much-loved gems which emanated from my dear Mother’s oven to those historically significant ones from the much-loved French Pastry Shop in Morristown circa 1960s, to those numerous wonders from my own experimentations over my years of devoted baking. How lovely and nostalgic. One of my most favorite things to make, eat, research and dream about.
Coffee cakes are often taken for granted and dismissed in the world of pastry and baking as being too humble and pedestrian to compete with the likes of those glorious delectables I saw last week at Dalloyau, Fouchon, Laduree, Hediard, etc. But, they have a place of highest regard for me and millions of others by virtue of their shear enumeration. They are indeed well sought after, treasured and much beloved.
The genre of coffee cakes is wide and copious. You can basically add anything to a basic coffee cake recipe and come up with good results. They seem to keep a general categorization as follows: non-yeasted: single layer cakes including streusels, crumbs, kuchens, buckles, etc., many bundt (love the scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding about bundts!) and tube pan cakes, kugelhopfs, and then, yeasted, which you may consider to include all the strudel and danish-like confections, filled confections with the likes of almond and other nut-based frangipane, cheese, fruit and other nut fillings and toppings and a myriad of flavors – all can be considered in the realm of the coffee cake. I guess, if you have it for breakfast or brunch or at any other time of day with coffee, it’s coffee cake.
Crumb cake seems to me to be in a category of its own. I still remember riding on the handlebars of a bicycle to Kay’s Bakery in Lavalette, NJ back in the 60s and 70s for their delicious crumb buns – which for all intents and purposes are a crumb coffee cake cut into squares. Yum. Seems like yesterday. I must confess that I have eaten a number of store-bought coffee cakes in my time. I have loved Entenmann’s All Butter French Crumb Cake and Crumb Coffee Cake and for many years as a kid I asked for the Sara Lee Pecan Coffee Cake. I hate to admit it, but I thought they were really good! We also made a cinnamon coffee cake when I was a kid that was a mix that came from a box – (box?) but I can not remember the name of it right now. I am also a closet fan of the old Pillsbury frozen cherry strudel that I don’t believe they have made for years. It makes me giggle to think about these things now……
Frangipane-filled pastries are among my favorite indulgences. In Pastry School I could have devoured an entire Pithivier myself that one afternoon – that sounds horrible, I know, but yum. I don’t exactly know if anyone would consider a Pithivier to be a coffee cake because, well, it isn’t a “cake” it’s more like a tort – being puff pastry with a frangipane filling – but, again, if you are using the definition of a cake had with coffee, then well, maybe it is a coffeecake. IDK and I don’t even know if it is that important to be so precise here but, I can tell you that Pithivier is worth trying (as is just about anything I can think of which starts out with puff pastry, but I digress). I will look up my ICE Pithivier recipe and post it for all to try, I promise.
Here is just a small sampling of some of my very favorite coffee cakes:
Ina Garten’s Blueberry Crumb coffee cake and iterations – I have made this with mixed berries and can’t wait to try it with peaches and almonds as soon as the first peaches come to town.
Nick Malgieri’s Fresh Ginger Pound Cake
Dorie Greenspan’s Classic Banana Bundt Cake
Smitten Kitchen Rhubarb Crumb Cake
Melissa Clark’s Big Crumb Coffee Cake
Blood Orange and Almond Bundt Cake – posted on January 13, 2013
Cinnamon Coffee Cake Kotniuk – Gourmet April 1990
Martha Stewart’s Lemon Ginger Bundt Cake – make with 1/2 pint of fresh blueberries
Carole Walter’s Apple Walnut Caramel Kuchen
One of my very favorite coffee cakes is the ubiquitous Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake. I love the concept and the flavor. But, I have to tell you, with all the ones I have tried, I have never gotten one with the texture I wanted – they always seem too dense to me. I really like the Cinnamon Coffee Cake Kotiuk noted above. I think it should be made with at least twice as much topping.
Great Books to Peruse:
Dorie Greenspan’s Baking – From My Home to Yours
Nick Malgieri’s Great Cakes
Carole Walter’s Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins and More
I spent a considerable amount of time thumbing through Carole Walter’s book today – it is a great compendium and quite informative. The number of baking books I have which include coffee cakes good enough to try is way too long to list here. But, I just couldn’t let the day go by without acknowledging the memories around great coffee cakes.
So, try one out today. I just may go invent a new one now myself.