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Cocoanut Coffee Cake
One-fourth cup of butter, one cup of sugar, two eggs, threefourths cup of strong coffee, three-fourths cup of cocoanut, one cup of flour, one teaspoon of baking powder, one-fourth teaspoon of salt. Mix liquid ingredients in order given; mix dry ingredients in order given, and add to the first, using more flour and baking powder if necessary.
Frosting-One cup of confectioners' sugar, one-fourth cup of cocoanut, one teaspoon of melted butter; mix with coffee.
A small, plain layer-style cake that leans on brewed coffee for its flavour. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how a butter cake goes together, and the flour quantity is deliberately left open.
- The flour is the hingeOne cup of flour against three-quarters cup of liquid plus two eggs gives a very slack batter. The line "using more flour and baking powder if necessary" is meant literally: more flour, and a little more baking powder with it, will probably be needed to reach a thick, dropping batter, but the recipe leaves the amount to the cook.
- Read "mix liquid ingredients in order given" as creamingButter, then sugar, then eggs beaten in one at a time, then the cooled coffee last. Adding cold coffee to a creamed mixture will make it look broken; the flour brings it back together.
- The coffee"strong" is not defined. Brew it roughly double the strength you would drink and let it cool to room temperature before it goes in, since hot coffee will soften the butter and may begin to set the eggs. Espresso let down to about three-quarters cup works well.
- CocoanutRecipes of this sort generally intend dried shredded coconut rather than fresh, and packaged shredded coconut was on sale in American groceries by the late nineteenth century. Modern sweetened flaked coconut will push the cake sweeter and hold more moisture; if using it, cutting the sugar to three-quarters cup compensates.
- Oven and tinNo temperature is given; ranges of the period had no thermostat, and recipes of this kind habitually left the heat to the cook. A moderate oven, around 350F, suits the batter. The quantity should fill one 8-inch round or square tin, roughly 30 to 35 minutes, or about a dozen cupcakes in about 20 minutes.
- The frostingNo liquid quantity is given for the coffee. Add cold strong coffee to the sugar and butter a teaspoon at a time, stopping at a thick spreading consistency; only a few teaspoons should be needed. It sets firm as it dries.
- YieldOne modest single-layer cake, eight to ten small slices. It is a plain everyday cake rather than a company dessert, and it stales quickly; eat within two days.
"Coffee cake" in an American community cookbook of this period can mean exactly what it says here: a cake flavoured with brewed coffee, rather than the German Kaffeekuchen tradition of a yeasted, streusel-topped bread eaten alongside coffee. Both senses were current, and the two coexisted in print for decades before the breakfast pastry won out. The spelling "cocoanut," standard through the nineteenth century, is traditionally said to reflect an old confusion with cocoa; desiccated coconut in packets became a reliable pantry staple in American towns in the closing decades of the century, which is why it turns up so freely in cakes and frostings of this vintage. This is a contributed household recipe of the kind that filled fundraising cookbooks, written cook-to-cook, with the oven temperature, the baking time and the final flour quantity all left to the reader's judgment.