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.
![](https://sarahscucinabella.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/vintage-coffee-cake-lead.jpg.webp)
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.
![](https://sarahscucinabella.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/crumb.jpg.webp)
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.
![](https://sarahscucinabella.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cookbook.jpg.webp)
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.
![](https://sarahscucinabella.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/crumbly.jpg.webp)
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.
![](https://sarahscucinabella.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/buttery.jpg.webp)
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.
![](https://sarahscucinabella.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/vintage-coffee-cake-body.jpg.webp)
Cinnamon-Sugar Coffee Cake
![Cinnamon-Sugar Coffee Cake](https://sarahscucinabella.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/vintage-coffee-cake-lead.jpg.webp)
recipe from All About Home Baking, 1936
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 6 tbsp butter
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup milk
Topping:
- 1 1/2 tbsp melted butter
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp 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!
Carol
Friday 8th of April 2016
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
1930's Style Coffee Cake - the domestic fringe
Monday 1st of July 2013
[...] got this recipe from another blogger though, so you’ll have to hop on over to Sarah’s Cucina Bella for the full [...]
Sally
Tuesday 8th of January 2013
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!
Loldri
Sunday 22nd of January 2012
I have never tasted a coffee cake I didnt think was amazing, I think that this will be another that I really like!
Joanne
Saturday 21st of January 2012
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.