Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Coffee Cake
Coffee Cake
Make a paste with the following ingredients: seven ounces of dried and sifted flour, half a pound of powdered sugar, seven ounces of butter, one tablespoonful of potato flour, the yolks of six eggs, the whites of six eggs well whisked, one whole egg, two tablespoonfuls of brandy and a little salt. Put in a buttered cylinder-mould and bake. While it is cooling beat up the whites of four or five eggs and sift n them half a pound of caster-sugar, whip this over the fire until thick, then remove and continue whipping until it is cold; add half a wineglassful of extract of coffee to give it a dark color. Put half a pound of butter in a basin, work with a spoon, and pour the coffee mixture in it as soon as it becomes creamy. When the cake is cold divide in thin slices, mask each layer with the coffee mixture, build the cake to its original form, mask it all over with more of the coffee mixture, smooth over and decorate. Put it on a dish on a folded napkin and fill the hollow with the remainder of the preparation.
This is a European mocha cake — a rich sponge split into thin layers and masked with coffee buttercream — not the American breakfast crumb cake the name now suggests. The original gives no oven temperature, no time, and no yield, so the notes below fill those gaps.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe batter is a heavy creamed base lightened only by six separately whisked whites. Fold them in in three additions with a spatula, stopping while a few streaks remain; overworking them here is the difference between a fine sponge and a dense brick.
- Oven and tinThe original gives no temperature; a moderate oven, about 350F, suits this batter. A "cylinder-mould" is a plain cylindrical mould with a central tube — hence the "hollow" filled at the end. Butter it heavily and dust with flour. A 9-inch tube pan of this batter takes roughly 40 to 50 minutes — test with a skewer rather than the clock, and cool completely before slicing or the layers will tear.
- "Powdered sugar" and "caster-sugar"In 1896 "powdered sugar" meant finely ground granulated, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Use caster (superfine) sugar for both the cake and the meringue.
- Potato flourThis is potato starch, still sold as such. One tablespoon in a cake this size is there to soften the crumb; cornstarch is an acceptable substitute.
- Dried and sifted flourFlour was commonly dried before the fire to drive off absorbed moisture. Modern bagged flour needs only sifting. Seven ounces is roughly 1 2/3 to 1 3/4 cups, but weigh it if you can — this batter has little margin.
- Extract of coffeeA concentrated coffee essence, not brewed coffee. Half a wineglassful is roughly 2 tablespoons; use a commercial coffee extract or reduce very strong espresso to a syrup. Brewed coffee in that volume will slacken the buttercream.
- The buttercream is a Swiss meringueWhipping whites and sugar over the fire until thick means over a pan of simmering water, to about 160F, then off the heat and whipped until cold. The recipe then works the butter to a cream and pours the coffee meringue into it; if the meringue is still warm, or the butter cold, the mixture will curdle — keep beating and it usually comes back together.
- Assembly and yieldChill the cake before splitting it into thin horizontal slices; a long serrated knife and a turntable make the masking manageable. The hollow of the tube is filled with the remaining buttercream at the end. No yield is given; a cake of this size should serve about 12 to 16, and it wants a cool room — this is an all-butter icing.
Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel whose name carried the Waldorf's kitchen into print in 1896, was recording the French-Swiss repertoire that ran New York's grand hotels, and this "Coffee Cake" belongs to that world rather than to the American coffee-and-cake table. It is essentially a mocha gâteau: a butter sponge stiffened with potato starch, split thin, and built back up with coffee buttercream — the sort of layered, masked, decorated cake made by European pastry cooks, who worked from concentrated coffee extracts rather than brewed coffee. Serving on a folded napkin was common hotel practice of the period. The American breakfast crumb cake, which descends from German Kaffeekuchen and is named for what you drink alongside it, is a separate line; here the coffee is in the cake.