If you like coffee cake, you're going to want to try this old fashioned Cinnamon-Sugar Coffee Cake recipe. This vintage recipe is worth the effort.
Coffee cake is one of those things. It's comforting and familiar and perfect for breakfast. This one, made from a recipe from the 1930s, has a dense crumb and an irresistible buttery cinnamon sugar topping.
No, it's not that impossibly fluffy and almost-dessert-sweet coffee cake from the grocery store. But it doesn't want to be. It's a totally different coffee cake -- one that stands up to the fork without squishing into oblivion and that can be eaten by hand without crumbling all over. And it's really great with a hot, steaming cup of coffee.
It is coffee cake after all.
Making this, I wasn't sure if the vintage sensibilities would make it a winner for us. But it was. Hugely.
I whipped it up for a brunch with friends last weekend where the cake quickly vanished. Seriously, not a trace was left behind. Good sign, right? And it was so good that I baked another just for our family.
Back to the brunch for a second. Though I adore brunch, I don't have people over (or go out) for it nearly enough. So I was thrilled to have a little one at my house. The brunch menu was simple -- bagels and lox with all the fixings, scrambled eggs, berry and pineapple fruit salad and this Cinnamon-Sugar Coffee Cake.
In the course of the conversation, I shared that this was a vintage recipe -- something dug out of my great collection of early 20th-century cookery books, pamphlets and recipe cards.
This recipe comes from the third edition of All About Home Baking, published in 1936 (the original was published in 1933) by the General Foods Corporation, a now-defunct company whose products (Calumut baking powder, Post cereals, Maxwell House Coffee and General Foods International Coffees, to name a few) live on. I bought this hardcover book off eBay a while back.
My friend asked about my interest in vintage recipes, which really got me thinking about why I have been so into pre-1960s cookery. I made this conscious decision to reclaim lost cooking techniques because I feel like as the reliance on prepared, prepackage and shortcut based cooking has grown, we've lost some of the skill and technique that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers used in the kitchen.
To them, making a quick coffee cake for breakfast or brunch or whatever was just that. It was simple, uncomplicated and easy.
And when I find a winner -- like this coffee cake -- I love to share it.
All told, this recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Coffee Cake takes about 30 minutes to make -- maybe 40, if you include the cooling time. And most of that time is totally hands-off (making the dough for the cake takes maybe 5 minutes).
Be warned, instead of a batter this really makes a crumbly dough. Don't worry if it doesn't form a ball -- you just need all the ingredients to have come together before you press it into a pan with floured hands.
And don't change a thing about the buttery cinnamon-sugar topping. It's the best part. (Aren't topping always the best part?)
You can do this. Dust off that cake pan this weekend and give this Cinnamon-Sugar Coffee Cake recipe a try.
Cinnamon-Sugar Coffee Cake
recipe from All About Home Baking, 1936
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup sugar
- 6 tablespoon butter
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup milk
Topping:
- 1 ½ tablespoon melted butter
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9-inch cake pan all over the inside with a little butter.
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in the butter using a pastry cutter or two knives.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk until light and frothy.
- Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir well until all combined. The dough will be somewhat stiff, but keep stirring until everything is incorporated.
- Transfer the dough to the prepared pan. Using floured hands, gently pat it down into one even layer.
- Brush the top of the coffee cake with melted butter. Then, stir together the sugar, flour and cinnamon for the topping. Sprinkle all over the top of the coffee cake.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out cleanly. Let cool for five minutes in the pan. Then, gently loosen the sides with a butter knife. Turn out onto a plate and then turn back onto a serving plate.
Enjoy!
My coffee cake recipe is from an ancient edition of Joy of Cooking. This one definitely sounds a bit different like the process of cutting into the butter or patting in the dough. Maybe I'll try it. I'm in a baking mood.
Tell me about your recipe ... what's it like? I have been a little obsessed with coffee cakes recently.
I'm old enough to remember when ladies met in the afternoon for coffee and this type of cake is what was served. Okay I was too young to be invited but I still remember eating the cake after it was over. 🙂 I loved it then and still do.
Oh Maureen! I wish ladies still did that. It seems like it must have been such a nice thing to do.
@sarah,
I will definitely try your recipe as I love everything from years ago! And yes wish ladies still met for coffee in the afternoon! Unfortunately including myself we all have to work - one income can barely support a household these days! I do however always cook from scratch even though it takes longer I feel as you do that we are losing that knack to just cook without premade/prepackaged products. I learned from my Grandmother who told me look in your refrigerator-whats in there you can use and just use that as a base, grab some items from your pantry and cook a meal from scratch! I was a ‘housewife’ when my children were young, best time of my life, staying home keeping a house, hanging laundry on the clothes line to dry, cooking 3 hot meals a day all without prepackaged help! The best was raising my children oh the good old days! Thank you for bringing back those sweet memories! I’m sure your coffee cake recipe will turn out delicious! Thanks a bunch!
Thank you so much for this kind and thoughtful comment. You're right. Things are so different once you work outside the house. I do as well.
I love the idea of a not too sweet coffee cake.
I'm generally pretty dubious of vintage recipes...I feel like tastes were a lot different back in the day. But I wouldn't have had any doubts about this cake. Anything cinnamon sugar has to be rockstar.
I have never tasted a coffee cake I didnt think was amazing, I think that this will be another that I really like!
I have a recipe that my mom cut from a 1951 issue of Better Homes & Gardens. It's a light dessert and I love it. I hadn't made it for years and decided to add it to the Thanksgiving menu a few years ago. When I checked the ingredients, I was shocked to realize that with the exception of lemon juice, it was all packaged ingredients.
I've been looking for a coffee cake recipe like this. Thanks!
Hi...I've been looking all over for my grandmother's coffee cake recipe and thought I'd found it til I see that the sugar cinnamon crumb is with white sugar. The cake looks so much like it because hers was more of a bread than cake like. It was to die for. She was from Melville Saskatchewan Canada..
I was wondering if there was another recipe in that book???
thanks Carol
@Carol, try brown sugar instead of the cinnamon and sugar. That's how my GMA made it.
No cinnamon at all, Amanda? Interesting. Does it caramelize on top?