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Orange Coffee Cake
2 cups flour 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 3 tablespoons shortening 1 egg 3/4 cup milk 2 tablespoons orange juice 1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind 6 tablespoons sugar Mix and sift dry ingredients, cut in shortening and add the beaten egg and milk. Mix well, spread in shallow pan and cover top with orange juice, grated rind and sugar mixed together. Bake in a hot oven (425 degrees F.) for 20 minutes. Serves 6.
A biscuit-style coffee cake rather than a creamed batter one: the shortening is cut into the dry ingredients, so the crumb comes out short and tender rather than fluffy. The topping is simply juice, rind and sugar, which fuses into a thin glaze during the short bake.
- The hingeThe recipe says "Mix well," but this is biscuit method: the shortening is cut in, and working the dough hard after the milk and egg go in will toughen it. Mix only until no dry flour remains.
- ShorteningIn a book of this vintage "shortening" usually means a solid vegetable fat or lard, though the term was generic and butter was often understood as an option. Butter works and tastes better, though it browns faster; keep it cold so it stays in flakes when cut in.
- Pan sizeThe recipe says only "shallow pan." For six servings something like an 8-inch square or a 9-inch round, an inch or so deep, is a reasonable guess. Much larger and the cake will bake thin and dry in 20 minutes.
- Oven425F is given, which is genuinely hot for a sugar-topped cake. Check at 15 minutes; the top sugar can darken before the centre sets if your oven runs high.
- The toppingTwo tablespoons of juice against six of sugar makes a wet paste, not a dry streusel. Spoon it on and spread gently rather than pouring, or it pools at the edges.
- Orange rindGrate only the coloured zest. The white pith beneath is bitter and there is nothing in this short bake to mask it.
- ServingBest warm, cut in squares, within an hour or two of baking. The glazed top goes tacky and the crumb dries by the next day.