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Breakfast Coffee Cake
Beat well together 2 eggs; add 1 cupful of milk, 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1 tablespoonful of sugar and sufficient sifted flour to make a thick drop batter. In the shallow baking pan melt I heaping tablespoonful of shortening-butter, lard or the two mixed. Grease sides and bottom then pour the remainder into the batter and beat hard. Last of all add 2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and beat again then pour into the pan. Bake about twenty-five minutes in a hot oven.
A plain batter bread meant to be eaten hot with coffee, not a streusel-topped cake. The one thing to get right is speed: the leavening goes in at the very end and the pan should already be hot and greased so the batter goes straight into the oven.
- "Hot oven"The recipe gives no temperature; in period usage this is roughly 400-425F. At that heat twenty-five minutes in a shallow pan should be about right; a tester in the centre should come out clean and the top should be well browned.
- The panA shallow baking pan of the period would be something on the order of an 8- or 9-inch square or a small rectangular tin. The recipe has the shortening melted in the pan itself, but does not say whether on the stove or in the oven, nor that the pan should be hot when the batter goes in.
- "Sufficient sifted flour"A thick drop batter is one that falls from the spoon in a lump rather than a ribbon. With 1 cup of milk and 2 eggs that lands near 2 cups of all-purpose flour; add the last half cup by degrees.
- Baking powder lastOld single-acting powders began working the moment they were wet, hence the instruction to add it at the end and get the batter into the oven at once. Modern double-acting powder is more forgiving, but the habit still produces a better rise.
- ShorteningButter, lard, or a mix all work. A heaping tablespoon is about 1 1/2 tablespoons; most of it goes into the batter and only a film stays behind to grease the pan.
- SweetnessOne tablespoon of sugar in the whole pan makes this closer to a rich cornbread than to a modern coffee cake. It is built to carry butter, jam or syrup at the table rather than to be sweet on its own.
- Yield and servingProbably six to nine squares. Like most quick batter breads it is best eaten hot, which suits the title.
"Coffee cake" in American cookbooks of this period means a cake served with coffee, not one containing it, and the term covered everything from yeasted German Kaffeekuchen to quick batter breads like this one. The distinguishing mark here is thrift: two eggs, a cup of milk, a single tablespoon of sugar and a spoonful of whatever fat the house had. Chemical leavening made such cakes possible for cooks with no time to set a sponge the night before.