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Nut Coffee Cake (with yeast)
2 cups milk 11/2 compressed yeast cakes 1/4 cup tepid water 1/2 cup sugar 2 egg yolks 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup Mazola From 5 to 6 cups bread flour 1/2 cup granulated sugar additional 1½ teaspoons cinnamon 1/2 cup shredded, blanched almonds or filberts Scald the milk and cool until tepid. Add the yeast dissolved in one-fourth cup warm water and beat in two cups of the flour. Cover, set in a warm place and when light and spongy (about two hours) add the eggs well beaten, the sugar, salt, Mazola and flour to knead. Return to the bowl, cover and let rise until double in bulk. Stir down and put in a medium-sized dripping pan oiled with Mazola. Cover and let rise again. Brush with Mazola and sprinkle with the sugar, cinnamon and nut meats, mixed. Bake from thirty to thirty-five minutes in a moderate oven 350 to 375 degrees F.
A straightforward sponge-and-dough yeast cake, written when corn oil was still novel enough to be named in every line. Two points need attention before you start: the yeast measurement and the pan.
- Compressed yeast cakesA compressed cake of this era was 0.6 oz, roughly equivalent to one modern packet (2 1/4 tsp) of active dry yeast. One and a half cakes is therefore about 1 tablespoon of active dry, or a scant 2 1/2 teaspoons of instant.
- MazolaSimply corn oil, then a heavily advertised new product. Any neutral oil works; the total is 1/2 cup in the dough plus a little for oiling and brushing.
- Dripping panA shallow rectangular roasting or sheet pan. A 9x13-inch pan gives about the right depth for a cake baked in 30 to 35 minutes; a larger sheet pan will produce a thinner, faster-baking cake.
- FilbertsHazelnuts. Blanched almonds are the alternative given; either should be shredded or coarsely slivered rather than chopped fine, so they toast rather than burn.
- Scalding the milkScalding is generally explained as denaturing components of raw milk (whey proteins, often loosely called enzymes) that weaken gluten. With modern pasteurised milk many bakers find it unnecessary, but the milk must still be cooled to tepid (about 100F) or the yeast will suffer.
- The sponge stageTwo hours is a guide, not a rule. The sponge is ready when it is visibly domed, bubbly and smells faintly of beer; in a warm kitchen this can happen in 60 to 90 minutes.
- Flour to kneadThe 5 to 6 cups is a range because flour absorbency varies. Add only enough to make a soft, slightly tacky dough — this is an enriched dough and overflouring gives a dry, bready crumb.
- OvenThe recipe helpfully gives the number: 350 to 375F. Bake at 350F if your pan is deep, 375F for a thin sheet. The centre should read about 190F.
- YieldRoughly 12 to 16 squares from a 9x13 pan. Best the day it is baked; the sugar-cinnamon-nut topping softens overnight.
This belongs to the family of German-American sweet yeast coffee cakes -- a sweet dough baked flat in a pan and finished with sugar, cinnamon and nuts rather than iced. (A true Streuselkuchen carries a butter-and-flour crumb topping, which this recipe does not have.) Coffee cakes of this type came to American tables through Central European immigrant baking in the nineteenth century, and by the 1910s and 1920s they were common in domestic-science cookbooks. The insistent naming of Mazola suggests the book may have been issued or underwritten by a manufacturer of the newer refined vegetable oils, which were then competing against butter and lard in home baking.