December 21, 2024 • 25 mins
The Fork Reporter talks coffee cake recipes and history, and it's all live on KFI AM 640!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Niel Savedre. You're listening to kfi EM six
forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Thanks for hanging out today, our last show before Christmas
and Hanukah coming up obviously, and happy to be with you.
I'm looking something up. I'm going down a coffee cake
(00:24):
rabbit hole right now because I kind of got on
that jag. I'm looking up for my mom's recipe out
of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. You know it's
the one with like the gingham, the red and white
gingham on it. It's like there's just there's a handful
of my mom's cookbooks that I duplicated when I moved out,
(00:48):
and a couple of them were harder to find. There's
some Mexican cookbooks and stuff that were standards in our house,
and I have since duplicated them. I've gone through her
cookbooks and now I'm going through this trying to find
that recipe because someone asked on social media because I
talked about my mom's coffee cake, about her recipes. So
(01:10):
I'm gonna find that and we'll talk about it. I
want to break down the history of coffee cake a
little bit because now I'm going down that jag. I
want to invite you to hang out with us on
social media. I'm the one that answers them. I'm the
one that looks at them. So at Fork Reporter on
all the major social media locales. But really I'm on
Instagram the most, and the second would be X. I'm
(01:34):
on Blue Sky, but I know there's so many of
them that it's hard to keep up with them all.
Of course, I am on threads and all of that stuff.
So anyways, you can follow me on Instagram at Fork
Reporter at Fork Reporter on Instagram. And Okay, my mom
just hit me up. She texted, I know it's gonna
(01:57):
be eighty seven. She's texting me. God bless that woman.
It's called Strusel coffee cake. Oh man, that's why I
couldn't find it. It's not in cakes. It's in the
bread section. Thanks mom. Hold on, I was just gonna
check that. I was going, let's see breads, Brussel, Brussel.
(02:21):
Where are you is Strussel Strusel? All right, I'm gonna
find that for you now that I know where to look.
Coffee cake muffins, that's not it. Okay, I'm gonna find
this because I I serve you. I serve you. You asked
(02:42):
for something, I get it for you, So thanks Mom,
I will pull that up. So let's kind of explore
a little bit about the coffee cake. If you go
ahead and you just go online and start searching, you're
gonna find a bazillion different coffee cakes. And it's very
easy to come across something and people go, Okay, well,
(03:04):
coffee cake is just any cake eaten with coffee. Some
believe that you have to have coffee in it, but
that's not necessarily the case. The modern idea is coffee
cake cake is often described as a cinnamon flavored sponge
cake with that crumbly strusl topping. You've got butter in it,
you've got sugar, you've got flour. Some versions actually taste
(03:27):
like coffee with coffee flavored cake and frosting. That's, you know,
I'm all good for I'm all good with that. I
love that too. That's just not what comes to my
mind when I'm thinking about this, right, I'm thinking about
this one particular one that my mom would make, which
is just a strusl strucil. So the modern idea is
(03:48):
that that cinnamon flavored one. That's what I'm thinking about
when I think about a coffee cake. Now, as far
as the origins of coffee cake, like some things in
the food world, it is tricky because a lot of
these things are it's like a bunch of comedians coming
up with the same joke. It's not that they stole it,
it's that there are times that it's just in it's
(04:13):
just in people's mind at the same time. So certain
ingredients are available looking for something similar comfort in the morning.
So the origins can be a little tricky. But according
to Food Timeline, when you break everything down, coffee cake
likely started as a type of honeycake in northern and
Central Europe during the seventeenth century. So these cakes were
(04:38):
kind of like sweetbread, which is interesting because, as my
mom stated, I'm going to find it in the bread
section of the cake section. These cakes were more like sweetbread.
They had yeast, they had flour, they had sugar, nuts, spices,
dried fruits in there. That strusel topping that we talked
about common back then, but the recipes continue to change
(04:59):
over time. Is believed to be the first country to
actually pair coffee with the cake, so in the sixteen hundreds,
coffee houses were popping up in Germany all over the place, Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin,
and they started serving these small little cakes and sweetbreads
along with the coffee, and that cool and now you
think of it as just you know, average fare at
(05:21):
a coffee shop. By the nineteenth century, coffee houses were
also opening in places like Vienna and Budapeste and Prague,
and the coffee cake became even more and more popular.
So the idea of having cake with coffee spread across
Europe as everything does. You know, it's much tighter and
(05:42):
more compact than here in the In the States, we
think about, well, where can you go? Where could you
literally like take a train to You've got Mexico and
you've got Canada. But in Europe, man you could just
take a train all through all of it and it's
like going to another state. It's really it's actually kind
(06:05):
of cool. So these coffee cakes or crumb cakes, they
were very simple cakes. Some were like a butnt cake.
In Nordic countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, people have the
tradition called fica It means coffee break and they enjoy cakes, buns,
(06:25):
pastries with their coffee. And these cakes are usually sweet
but also made with yeast, sometimes glaze or sugar syrup.
And this continues to go on to Danish pastries, which
were originally from Vienna. They're also popular with coffee in
Nordic countries. So France had its croissants, and you know
(06:48):
which is this aggy, lovely flaky rather bread and sometimes
rum would be in it, and these types of things.
So coffee cake here in the And also my mom
just texted me again. She says that it lists raisin,
which I always left out. God bless you, Mom. Another
(07:12):
reason to love you. If she put raisins in the
coffee cake, I would have been out. I like raisins,
I just don't necessarily like them in my baked goods.
Some I do, but not all. So in the mid
eighteen hundreds, many German Dutch immigrants they moved to the US.
This is how a lot of great things come to
the United States. Europe style tea houses became popular. Immigrants
(07:35):
brought their coffee cake recipes with them, so over time
Americans began to adapt these recipes, started adding actual coffee
to some of the cakes, and by the early nineteen hundreds.
Coffee cake appeared in American cookbooks so by in the
nineteen twenties. It was so popular even had its own
section in recipe books. The classic American coffee cake is
(07:56):
still a cinnamon flavored sponge cake crumbly trussel topping, and
you can find it everywhere. Most bakery, supermarket, Starbucks sales
a version. Obviously. The version that I got that I
really loved in all of its simplicity was at Western Bagel,
and it was a nice portion too. It's a nice
cut of cake. You know, it's almost like twice the
(08:18):
size I would expected for it, but it was delicious.
Sometimes it has walnut in it. These types of things,
so long, rich history with coffee cake. They're delicious. I
will pull up now that I have the lead on this,
my mom's coffee cake recipe that I grew up with.
We'll talk about that when we come back. It's all
(08:39):
coffee cake talk. Look at that coffee.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, now I'm upset you're listening to the Fork Report.
I'm your well fed host Neil Sevidra how do you
do Happy Holidays to you, Marry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Hanika? Yeah,
and Christmas landing on the same day.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know, if you're Smokey Robinson, it's happy Chanukah?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Is that what he says?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
He did it for a cameo video. He didn't know
what Hanukah looked like with the c in front of it,
and it went viral a couple of years ago, and
he said, he said, happy Chanooka. I mean the video's
out there.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Oh, well that happened. That does happen. Yeah, it's written
like four different ways. So yeah, you see the ch
and that that can be. That can be rough. But
I bet you they really enjoyed that little cameo.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I'm sure they did. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I wonder what it would cost to have Smokey uh
wish you happy Chinooka on the cameo there. What's your guess?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Probably a thousand bucks? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Wow, huh interesting anyho. So here's the deal. I went
down this deep dive about coffee cakes because I had
one the other day and it was very tasty, and
it reminded me, you know that I haven't had my
mother's coffee cake in a long time. She would make
it on weekends a lot, and make it on Sundays,
maybe after church or something. And so I have my
(10:14):
version of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but this
one is labeled new cookbook. Now it looks the same.
It's got that red and white gingham on it. And
she told me it's the Strussel coffee cake and it's
in the bread section. But I have a theory here,
and I'm looking because I'm not sure if this shows.
(10:34):
Let's see, this one was updated nineteen ninety six, is
the updated version that I have, And I have a
sneaking suspicion that my copy doesn't have that particular cake
in it. I because sometimes you know, they add new
(10:57):
things and they boot other things in these books, and
I'm guessing my mom's is probably, you know, if I
remember correctly, it was something that was passed on to
her or given to her maybe even you know, when
my parents got married in the fifties, so it might
(11:18):
have been a much earlier one. So I'm going to
have to check that and track that down when I
see my mom for the holidays. But thankfully, because listeners
are awesome, Eva Olie who is a listener. But we've
become friends by connecting over the years. She texts me,
(11:40):
and she said, I love coffee cake. I've made many,
many different kinds. None has ever been as good as
this one, even though it is embarrassingly simple. So let
me run through this real quick. Sour cream cinnamon breakfast cake.
Four eggs, half cup sugar, three fourths cup oil, one
(12:05):
package yellow cake mix. Well, yeah, that is easy. One
cup sour cream, three fourths cup chopped nuts, quarter cup
dark brown sugar, one tablespoon cinnamon. Beat the eggs until
they're thick and fluffy. The sugar and oil. Beat again.
Blend in the cake, mix sour cream, and nuts. Pour
(12:28):
half of the batter into a well greased bunt pan.
Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over
the batter. Swirl in lightly with a knife. Pour the
remaining batter on the top. Bake in preheated See what
I told you, three hundred and fifty degree oven for
forty five to sixty minutes. Serves twelve um or me.
(12:56):
Oh that sounds delicious. Now I gotta try that one.
Now I'm so craving coffee cake. I can't even tell
you all right, we'll be back with more much to
get into la restaurants that are great during the holidays.
Walmart has more many things, you know, for a buck
(13:18):
or so for stuffing stockers, we talked about stucking stuffing stockers,
stocking stuffers. Yeah, that sounds right. We talked about the
little Nutella the other day. Well, there's something else they
had that I thought was pretty cool and more so,
go know where.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra on
demand from KFI A six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Basically, if you're new to the show, every Saturday from
two to five, we kind of set apart the heaviness
of the news, whatever's going on in the world, and
we just celebrate food. That's it. We celebrate food, making food,
you know, cooking and going out to eat, and baking
and beverages if you imbibe, although there is low to
(14:03):
zero ABV beverages out there, what they call mocktails that
are real popular. You know, I just heard the commercial
spot by the way for the Bartesian and it makes cocktails.
It's kind of an interesting tech that I want to
learn more about. Makes cocktails there with little pods kind
of you know, think like a Kurig or something like that,
(14:25):
but alcohol. And you know what, they have a setting
to make them non alcoholic, and I did not know
that doing a little research about that product, and they
you can set it so you can make mocktails and
then you know, the next person who wants booze in
it turns up the knob and it will put booze.
(14:45):
It's kind of a crazy tech anyways. So that's what
we do here on the Folk Report is just celebrate food.
And I am your friendly neighborhood Fork reporter Neil Savager
that walks you through the entirety of this. We've been
walking through coffee cake. I don't even know what got
me on that jag originally. I think I had coffee
(15:06):
cake yesterday. Handle had purchased us breakfast and I got
it from Western Bagels. And it's really lovely, very simple,
like a yellow cake and nice soft yellow cake with
the strussel on top. Your brown sugar, I think you
know what started. We were talking about brown sugar earlier.
That's it. The flavor for twenty twenty five that you're
(15:28):
going to be seeing more and more of is brown sugar.
And I think that's what got me down that path.
And then I started thinking about my mom's that she
used to make coffee cake on Sunday mornings or whatever,
and you know, after church you get together and you
have that. Sometimes she'd bring home the pondulce and what
(15:51):
have you, and we're like, I'll just have the pink
cookies AnyWho. So then I'm like, well, I've duplicated a
lot of my mom's cookbooks because they're the things that
I grew up with. So Better Homes and Gardens was
one of the first ones. I grabbed my copies from
nineteen ninety six, which tracks probably age wise and everything.
(16:11):
But I think it I think it's missing the recipe
for that. So I was like, I couldn't find it anywhere.
So I gave you one that a friend sent me,
and so I read he was and then my brother Kirk,
I guess my mom had him take a picture and
(16:34):
send me what's in hers. So it's called the Strussel
coffee Cake, and it's in her version of Better Homes
and Gardens. And I'll give you this recipe because this
is what I grew up on, and now I have
it in front of me and my gratty little hands.
One and a half cups all purpose flowers, so your
ap flowers, your general flower. Three fourth cup granulated sugar,
(16:59):
two teaspoons baking powder, half teaspoon salt, one beaten egg.
The egg knows what it did. One beaten egg, half
cup milk, quarter cup cooking oil, half cup raisins. If
you're weird. She didn't put the raisins in there because
(17:21):
she would have gotten heat from you know, having six
boys and one girl, she would have gotten heat. Put
those raisins in there. Half cup chopped nuts. Sometimes she
put them in there, but I don't know that she
always did. Quarter cup packed brown sugar, one tablespoon all
(17:42):
purpose flour. And you know, sometimes you have it and
then you leave some behind. One tablespoon butter or margarine,
softened butter, one teaspoon ground cinnamon. So you stir together
the one and a half cups flour, granulated sugar, baking powder,
and salt. Combine egg, milk and oil. Add to flour mixture,
(18:07):
mix well, stir in the raisins, leave them out. Turn
it turn into a greased nine inch circled pan two
inch high. Combine nuts, browned sugar, one tablespoonful of flour,
butter or margarine, butter and cinnamon. Sprinkle that over the batter.
(18:29):
Bake at three seventy five oven for twenty five minutes.
Makes one coffee cake. So that's what I grew up with.
That is what I want to make. That is delicious. Gosh,
that just brings me back to that those flavors. It's
still in the crumble, the strusel on top and crunchy
(18:52):
cinnamony brown sugary. I wouldn't have remembered to put that
tablespoon of flour in the strusle, but that makes sense,
gives it an extra crunch. I like that, all right,
Thanks mom, Thanks Kirk, I appreciate it. Now I've passed
that along to you. Another reminder to follow and join
us on Instagram and x at fork Reporter at Fork Reporter.
(19:16):
Because you ask, you say, hey, I would like that
recipe for your mom's coffee cake, and there you go.
Now you have it, even though it took me an
hour to get that all squared away. Almost bad host
or super great and heroic host.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
You decide you're listening to The Fork Report with Nil
Savedra on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Both Hanukkah and Christmas coming on the same day this year.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
It's a Kahonka Christmas. I can't take the Christ out
of Christmas. That's a miracle, a miracle coming together, to
two different calendars coming to together as one. The year
(20:04):
twenty twenty four, the Gregorian and what is it six
thousand year six thousand and fifty something and the Jewish calendar.
Get a lot of time on that calendar, A lot
of time, all.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Right, Talking a little bit about the holidays and food
they're in. We just did a deep dive on coffee cake,
which now I'm craving and people are sending me all
these great recipes on our Instagram and x account. You
can join us there at Fork Reporter at Fork Reporter,
(20:39):
but very cool and thanks for you and keep sending them.
If you have a family favorite, your coffee cake, I
want to hear about it, I want to see it.
I'm in I am in in in on that. I
love a good coffee cake and looking forward to trying
some of those. So now moving on to stockings. I
(21:01):
don't know what it is. My younger brother Kirk and
I as kids, we'd wake up, we were the first
ones up, and you know, my brother Daniel and my
brother Craig sometimes you know, we probably Scott Mark and
my sister and all those folks, probably at different times too,
(21:21):
But I remember we'd get up and then one of
our older siblings would lay with us in front of
the Christmas tree. But before we woke anybody else up,
my little booger of a brother, he and I would
be like in our matching, you know, Santa pajamas or whatever,
and we would we'd go running down the hall into
(21:46):
the family or in the living room there with the
Christmas tree, we'd look at the presents, and I got
to tell you, with that many kids, even though very
modest home and modest upbringing, we did not have a
lot of money at all. That you just saw a
massive amount of presence under the tree and we'd gasp
(22:06):
and then we'd go run over to the stockings, and
the stockings were my jam. There's just something of stockings.
I don't know if it's because you know, technically you're
not banned from opening a stocking. You can get right
into your stocking if you want, start poking around and
looking at stuff. But I guess maybe that's the maybe
the last thing that Santa touched, possibly too, like you know,
(22:29):
I'm assuming that Santa did that on the way out.
So it's like, ah, this is like the coolest thing.
So I have a love for stockings. I have a
love for my My mom still has the stocking I
had since birth. She made it and as a snowman
on it, and so I've also been partial to snowman
(22:52):
since then as well. But there's something magic about stockings.
And so whenever I find little treats are things like
small versions of something that can go on to stocking,
I always think that's really cool. So don't forget the stocking,
is what I'm saying. And we talked about Walmart having
these little these little tiny containers of nutella the other day. Well,
(23:15):
this is really cool because now they have like a
whole line of hot sauces at Walmart and they're one dollars,
so hot sauces and barbecue sauces at Walmart, and I
thought that is cute as hell. They got little squeeze
bottles of these things, so if you want to put together,
(23:35):
you know, a handful of them for someone who likes
to grill or cook. I thought that was pretty cool.
I've never seen this there, but they got a variety
of them and they're bucky each and they're like these
little things. Frank's Red Hot. They got all these different
hot Honey, Kinders Hot Honey Barbecue. So I have Melinda's
(23:57):
Hot Sauce, ketchup and green Sauce. I just thought, how
cute is that. So if you're looking for something a
little different to put inside the stocking, take a look
at these little one dollar these new mini one dollar
sauces there. And they've got these these big bins at
Walmart and check them out. Check your local Walmart and
(24:18):
see if they have them. But I just thought that
that is something that would be welcomed. You know, candy
in there is always really yummy as well, But I thought,
what a cool thing for someone like myself who likes
to cook or grill or these types of things, of
having these tiny little sauces in your stocking would be
very very cute, a welcomed edition. So little toys or
(24:43):
trinkets or things that you need but you don't think
about getting all the time. Some time you put socks
in there, little things like that. But the food stuff
I always thought is really super cute, so something worth
checking out and seeing. If you've got somebody who loves
their sauces in your life for the holidays, there at
Walmart Yellow Bird Srano Hot Sauce. You gotta love that.
(25:09):
It's aid Tabernaro, Sirachia, honey, black cherry toman yerow Yum,
yum yum. You've been listening to The Fork Report. You
can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty
two to five pm on Saturday, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Hey, it's Niel Savedre. You're listening to kfi EM six
forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Thanks for hanging out today, our last show before Christmas
and Hanukah coming up obviously, and happy to be with you.
I'm looking something up. I'm going down a coffee cake
(00:24):
rabbit hole right now because I kind of got on
that jag. I'm looking up for my mom's recipe out
of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. You know it's
the one with like the gingham, the red and white
gingham on it. It's like there's just there's a handful
of my mom's cookbooks that I duplicated when I moved out,
(00:48):
and a couple of them were harder to find. There's
some Mexican cookbooks and stuff that were standards in our house,
and I have since duplicated them. I've gone through her
cookbooks and now I'm going through this trying to find
that recipe because someone asked on social media because I
talked about my mom's coffee cake, about her recipes. So
(01:10):
I'm gonna find that and we'll talk about it. I
want to break down the history of coffee cake a
little bit because now I'm going down that jag. I
want to invite you to hang out with us on
social media. I'm the one that answers them. I'm the
one that looks at them. So at Fork Reporter on
all the major social media locales. But really I'm on
Instagram the most, and the second would be X. I'm
(01:34):
on Blue Sky, but I know there's so many of
them that it's hard to keep up with them all.
Of course, I am on threads and all of that stuff.
So anyways, you can follow me on Instagram at Fork
Reporter at Fork Reporter on Instagram. And Okay, my mom
just hit me up. She texted, I know it's gonna
(01:57):
be eighty seven. She's texting me. God bless that woman.
It's called Strusel coffee cake. Oh man, that's why I
couldn't find it. It's not in cakes. It's in the
bread section. Thanks mom. Hold on, I was just gonna
check that. I was going, let's see breads, Brussel, Brussel.
(02:21):
Where are you is Strussel Strusel? All right, I'm gonna
find that for you now that I know where to look.
Coffee cake muffins, that's not it. Okay, I'm gonna find
this because I I serve you. I serve you. You asked
(02:42):
for something, I get it for you, So thanks Mom,
I will pull that up. So let's kind of explore
a little bit about the coffee cake. If you go
ahead and you just go online and start searching, you're
gonna find a bazillion different coffee cakes. And it's very
easy to come across something and people go, Okay, well,
(03:04):
coffee cake is just any cake eaten with coffee. Some
believe that you have to have coffee in it, but
that's not necessarily the case. The modern idea is coffee
cake cake is often described as a cinnamon flavored sponge
cake with that crumbly strusl topping. You've got butter in it,
you've got sugar, you've got flour. Some versions actually taste
(03:27):
like coffee with coffee flavored cake and frosting. That's, you know,
I'm all good for I'm all good with that. I
love that too. That's just not what comes to my
mind when I'm thinking about this, right, I'm thinking about
this one particular one that my mom would make, which
is just a strusl strucil. So the modern idea is
(03:48):
that that cinnamon flavored one. That's what I'm thinking about
when I think about a coffee cake. Now, as far
as the origins of coffee cake, like some things in
the food world, it is tricky because a lot of
these things are it's like a bunch of comedians coming
up with the same joke. It's not that they stole it,
it's that there are times that it's just in it's
(04:13):
just in people's mind at the same time. So certain
ingredients are available looking for something similar comfort in the morning.
So the origins can be a little tricky. But according
to Food Timeline, when you break everything down, coffee cake
likely started as a type of honeycake in northern and
Central Europe during the seventeenth century. So these cakes were
(04:38):
kind of like sweetbread, which is interesting because, as my
mom stated, I'm going to find it in the bread
section of the cake section. These cakes were more like sweetbread.
They had yeast, they had flour, they had sugar, nuts, spices,
dried fruits in there. That strusel topping that we talked
about common back then, but the recipes continue to change
(04:59):
over time. Is believed to be the first country to
actually pair coffee with the cake, so in the sixteen hundreds,
coffee houses were popping up in Germany all over the place, Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin,
and they started serving these small little cakes and sweetbreads
along with the coffee, and that cool and now you
think of it as just you know, average fare at
(05:21):
a coffee shop. By the nineteenth century, coffee houses were
also opening in places like Vienna and Budapeste and Prague,
and the coffee cake became even more and more popular.
So the idea of having cake with coffee spread across
Europe as everything does. You know, it's much tighter and
(05:42):
more compact than here in the In the States, we
think about, well, where can you go? Where could you
literally like take a train to You've got Mexico and
you've got Canada. But in Europe, man you could just
take a train all through all of it and it's
like going to another state. It's really it's actually kind
(06:05):
of cool. So these coffee cakes or crumb cakes, they
were very simple cakes. Some were like a butnt cake.
In Nordic countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, people have the
tradition called fica It means coffee break and they enjoy cakes, buns,
(06:25):
pastries with their coffee. And these cakes are usually sweet
but also made with yeast, sometimes glaze or sugar syrup.
And this continues to go on to Danish pastries, which
were originally from Vienna. They're also popular with coffee in
Nordic countries. So France had its croissants, and you know
(06:48):
which is this aggy, lovely flaky rather bread and sometimes
rum would be in it, and these types of things.
So coffee cake here in the And also my mom
just texted me again. She says that it lists raisin,
which I always left out. God bless you, Mom. Another
(07:12):
reason to love you. If she put raisins in the
coffee cake, I would have been out. I like raisins,
I just don't necessarily like them in my baked goods.
Some I do, but not all. So in the mid
eighteen hundreds, many German Dutch immigrants they moved to the US.
This is how a lot of great things come to
the United States. Europe style tea houses became popular. Immigrants
(07:35):
brought their coffee cake recipes with them, so over time
Americans began to adapt these recipes, started adding actual coffee
to some of the cakes, and by the early nineteen hundreds.
Coffee cake appeared in American cookbooks so by in the
nineteen twenties. It was so popular even had its own
section in recipe books. The classic American coffee cake is
(07:56):
still a cinnamon flavored sponge cake crumbly trussel topping, and
you can find it everywhere. Most bakery, supermarket, Starbucks sales
a version. Obviously. The version that I got that I
really loved in all of its simplicity was at Western Bagel,
and it was a nice portion too. It's a nice
cut of cake. You know, it's almost like twice the
(08:18):
size I would expected for it, but it was delicious.
Sometimes it has walnut in it. These types of things,
so long, rich history with coffee cake. They're delicious. I
will pull up now that I have the lead on this,
my mom's coffee cake recipe that I grew up with.
We'll talk about that when we come back. It's all
(08:39):
coffee cake talk. Look at that coffee.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, now I'm upset you're listening to the Fork Report.
I'm your well fed host Neil Sevidra how do you
do Happy Holidays to you, Marry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Hanika? Yeah,
and Christmas landing on the same day.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know, if you're Smokey Robinson, it's happy Chanukah?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Is that what he says?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
He did it for a cameo video. He didn't know
what Hanukah looked like with the c in front of it,
and it went viral a couple of years ago, and
he said, he said, happy Chanooka. I mean the video's
out there.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Oh, well that happened. That does happen. Yeah, it's written
like four different ways. So yeah, you see the ch
and that that can be. That can be rough. But
I bet you they really enjoyed that little cameo.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I'm sure they did. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I wonder what it would cost to have Smokey uh
wish you happy Chinooka on the cameo there. What's your guess?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Probably a thousand bucks? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Wow, huh interesting anyho. So here's the deal. I went
down this deep dive about coffee cakes because I had
one the other day and it was very tasty, and
it reminded me, you know that I haven't had my
mother's coffee cake in a long time. She would make
it on weekends a lot, and make it on Sundays,
maybe after church or something. And so I have my
(10:14):
version of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but this
one is labeled new cookbook. Now it looks the same.
It's got that red and white gingham on it. And
she told me it's the Strussel coffee cake and it's
in the bread section. But I have a theory here,
and I'm looking because I'm not sure if this shows.
(10:34):
Let's see, this one was updated nineteen ninety six, is
the updated version that I have, And I have a
sneaking suspicion that my copy doesn't have that particular cake
in it. I because sometimes you know, they add new
(10:57):
things and they boot other things in these books, and
I'm guessing my mom's is probably, you know, if I
remember correctly, it was something that was passed on to
her or given to her maybe even you know, when
my parents got married in the fifties, so it might
(11:18):
have been a much earlier one. So I'm going to
have to check that and track that down when I
see my mom for the holidays. But thankfully, because listeners
are awesome, Eva Olie who is a listener. But we've
become friends by connecting over the years. She texts me,
(11:40):
and she said, I love coffee cake. I've made many,
many different kinds. None has ever been as good as
this one, even though it is embarrassingly simple. So let
me run through this real quick. Sour cream cinnamon breakfast cake.
Four eggs, half cup sugar, three fourths cup oil, one
(12:05):
package yellow cake mix. Well, yeah, that is easy. One
cup sour cream, three fourths cup chopped nuts, quarter cup
dark brown sugar, one tablespoon cinnamon. Beat the eggs until
they're thick and fluffy. The sugar and oil. Beat again.
Blend in the cake, mix sour cream, and nuts. Pour
(12:28):
half of the batter into a well greased bunt pan.
Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over
the batter. Swirl in lightly with a knife. Pour the
remaining batter on the top. Bake in preheated See what
I told you, three hundred and fifty degree oven for
forty five to sixty minutes. Serves twelve um or me.
(12:56):
Oh that sounds delicious. Now I gotta try that one.
Now I'm so craving coffee cake. I can't even tell
you all right, we'll be back with more much to
get into la restaurants that are great during the holidays.
Walmart has more many things, you know, for a buck
(13:18):
or so for stuffing stockers, we talked about stucking stuffing stockers,
stocking stuffers. Yeah, that sounds right. We talked about the
little Nutella the other day. Well, there's something else they
had that I thought was pretty cool and more so,
go know where.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra on
demand from KFI A six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Basically, if you're new to the show, every Saturday from
two to five, we kind of set apart the heaviness
of the news, whatever's going on in the world, and
we just celebrate food. That's it. We celebrate food, making food,
you know, cooking and going out to eat, and baking
and beverages if you imbibe, although there is low to
(14:03):
zero ABV beverages out there, what they call mocktails that
are real popular. You know, I just heard the commercial
spot by the way for the Bartesian and it makes cocktails.
It's kind of an interesting tech that I want to
learn more about. Makes cocktails there with little pods kind
of you know, think like a Kurig or something like that,
(14:25):
but alcohol. And you know what, they have a setting
to make them non alcoholic, and I did not know
that doing a little research about that product, and they
you can set it so you can make mocktails and
then you know, the next person who wants booze in
it turns up the knob and it will put booze.
(14:45):
It's kind of a crazy tech anyways. So that's what
we do here on the Folk Report is just celebrate food.
And I am your friendly neighborhood Fork reporter Neil Savager
that walks you through the entirety of this. We've been
walking through coffee cake. I don't even know what got
me on that jag originally. I think I had coffee
(15:06):
cake yesterday. Handle had purchased us breakfast and I got
it from Western Bagels. And it's really lovely, very simple,
like a yellow cake and nice soft yellow cake with
the strussel on top. Your brown sugar, I think you
know what started. We were talking about brown sugar earlier.
That's it. The flavor for twenty twenty five that you're
(15:28):
going to be seeing more and more of is brown sugar.
And I think that's what got me down that path.
And then I started thinking about my mom's that she
used to make coffee cake on Sunday mornings or whatever,
and you know, after church you get together and you
have that. Sometimes she'd bring home the pondulce and what
(15:51):
have you, and we're like, I'll just have the pink
cookies AnyWho. So then I'm like, well, I've duplicated a
lot of my mom's cookbooks because they're the things that
I grew up with. So Better Homes and Gardens was
one of the first ones. I grabbed my copies from
nineteen ninety six, which tracks probably age wise and everything.
(16:11):
But I think it I think it's missing the recipe
for that. So I was like, I couldn't find it anywhere.
So I gave you one that a friend sent me,
and so I read he was and then my brother Kirk,
I guess my mom had him take a picture and
(16:34):
send me what's in hers. So it's called the Strussel
coffee Cake, and it's in her version of Better Homes
and Gardens. And I'll give you this recipe because this
is what I grew up on, and now I have
it in front of me and my gratty little hands.
One and a half cups all purpose flowers, so your
ap flowers, your general flower. Three fourth cup granulated sugar,
(16:59):
two teaspoons baking powder, half teaspoon salt, one beaten egg.
The egg knows what it did. One beaten egg, half
cup milk, quarter cup cooking oil, half cup raisins. If
you're weird. She didn't put the raisins in there because
(17:21):
she would have gotten heat from you know, having six
boys and one girl, she would have gotten heat. Put
those raisins in there. Half cup chopped nuts. Sometimes she
put them in there, but I don't know that she
always did. Quarter cup packed brown sugar, one tablespoon all
(17:42):
purpose flour. And you know, sometimes you have it and
then you leave some behind. One tablespoon butter or margarine,
softened butter, one teaspoon ground cinnamon. So you stir together
the one and a half cups flour, granulated sugar, baking powder,
and salt. Combine egg, milk and oil. Add to flour mixture,
(18:07):
mix well, stir in the raisins, leave them out. Turn
it turn into a greased nine inch circled pan two
inch high. Combine nuts, browned sugar, one tablespoonful of flour,
butter or margarine, butter and cinnamon. Sprinkle that over the batter.
(18:29):
Bake at three seventy five oven for twenty five minutes.
Makes one coffee cake. So that's what I grew up with.
That is what I want to make. That is delicious. Gosh,
that just brings me back to that those flavors. It's
still in the crumble, the strusel on top and crunchy
(18:52):
cinnamony brown sugary. I wouldn't have remembered to put that
tablespoon of flour in the strusle, but that makes sense,
gives it an extra crunch. I like that, all right,
Thanks mom, Thanks Kirk, I appreciate it. Now I've passed
that along to you. Another reminder to follow and join
us on Instagram and x at fork Reporter at Fork Reporter.
(19:16):
Because you ask, you say, hey, I would like that
recipe for your mom's coffee cake, and there you go.
Now you have it, even though it took me an
hour to get that all squared away. Almost bad host
or super great and heroic host.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
You decide you're listening to The Fork Report with Nil
Savedra on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Both Hanukkah and Christmas coming on the same day this year.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
It's a Kahonka Christmas. I can't take the Christ out
of Christmas. That's a miracle, a miracle coming together, to
two different calendars coming to together as one. The year
(20:04):
twenty twenty four, the Gregorian and what is it six
thousand year six thousand and fifty something and the Jewish calendar.
Get a lot of time on that calendar, A lot
of time, all.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Right, Talking a little bit about the holidays and food
they're in. We just did a deep dive on coffee cake,
which now I'm craving and people are sending me all
these great recipes on our Instagram and x account. You
can join us there at Fork Reporter at Fork Reporter,
(20:39):
but very cool and thanks for you and keep sending them.
If you have a family favorite, your coffee cake, I
want to hear about it, I want to see it.
I'm in I am in in in on that. I
love a good coffee cake and looking forward to trying
some of those. So now moving on to stockings. I
(21:01):
don't know what it is. My younger brother Kirk and
I as kids, we'd wake up, we were the first
ones up, and you know, my brother Daniel and my
brother Craig sometimes you know, we probably Scott Mark and
my sister and all those folks, probably at different times too,
(21:21):
But I remember we'd get up and then one of
our older siblings would lay with us in front of
the Christmas tree. But before we woke anybody else up,
my little booger of a brother, he and I would
be like in our matching, you know, Santa pajamas or whatever,
and we would we'd go running down the hall into
(21:46):
the family or in the living room there with the
Christmas tree, we'd look at the presents, and I got
to tell you, with that many kids, even though very
modest home and modest upbringing, we did not have a
lot of money at all. That you just saw a
massive amount of presence under the tree and we'd gasp
(22:06):
and then we'd go run over to the stockings, and
the stockings were my jam. There's just something of stockings.
I don't know if it's because you know, technically you're
not banned from opening a stocking. You can get right
into your stocking if you want, start poking around and
looking at stuff. But I guess maybe that's the maybe
the last thing that Santa touched, possibly too, like you know,
(22:29):
I'm assuming that Santa did that on the way out.
So it's like, ah, this is like the coolest thing.
So I have a love for stockings. I have a
love for my My mom still has the stocking I
had since birth. She made it and as a snowman
on it, and so I've also been partial to snowman
(22:52):
since then as well. But there's something magic about stockings.
And so whenever I find little treats are things like
small versions of something that can go on to stocking,
I always think that's really cool. So don't forget the stocking,
is what I'm saying. And we talked about Walmart having
these little these little tiny containers of nutella the other day. Well,
(23:15):
this is really cool because now they have like a
whole line of hot sauces at Walmart and they're one dollars,
so hot sauces and barbecue sauces at Walmart, and I
thought that is cute as hell. They got little squeeze
bottles of these things, so if you want to put together,
(23:35):
you know, a handful of them for someone who likes
to grill or cook. I thought that was pretty cool.
I've never seen this there, but they got a variety
of them and they're bucky each and they're like these
little things. Frank's Red Hot. They got all these different
hot Honey, Kinders Hot Honey Barbecue. So I have Melinda's
(23:57):
Hot Sauce, ketchup and green Sauce. I just thought, how
cute is that. So if you're looking for something a
little different to put inside the stocking, take a look
at these little one dollar these new mini one dollar
sauces there. And they've got these these big bins at
Walmart and check them out. Check your local Walmart and
(24:18):
see if they have them. But I just thought that
that is something that would be welcomed. You know, candy
in there is always really yummy as well, But I thought,
what a cool thing for someone like myself who likes
to cook or grill or these types of things, of
having these tiny little sauces in your stocking would be
very very cute, a welcomed edition. So little toys or
(24:43):
trinkets or things that you need but you don't think
about getting all the time. Some time you put socks
in there, little things like that. But the food stuff
I always thought is really super cute, so something worth
checking out and seeing. If you've got somebody who loves
their sauces in your life for the holidays, there at
Walmart Yellow Bird Srano Hot Sauce. You gotta love that.
(25:09):
It's aid Tabernaro, Sirachia, honey, black cherry toman yerow Yum,
yum yum. You've been listening to The Fork Report. You
can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty
two to five pm on Saturday, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
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