"coffee cake" news and stories

Happy Coffee Cake Day!

Thought to have originated in Central and Northern Europe in the 1600s, coffee cake takes its name from the logical pairing of sweet cakes with cups of warm coffee. The first "cakes" paired with coffee were much less complex than the coffee cakes of today and resembled bread more than anything else, sweetened with nuts, spices or dried fruit. But over time, as sugar became increasingly integrated into daily diets, the "cakes" were flavored with yoghurt, cheeses, sugared fruit, and various creamy fillings.

It wasn't until 1879 that the term "coffee cake" was coined, argues Stuart Berg Flexner in Listening to America, and it wasn't until the last decades of the 1800s that coffee cake recipes began to appear in American cookbooks, many of which even included coffee as an ingredient.

For tried-and-true classic recipes, as well as some innovative newer ones, peruse our list of recommended recipes:

• Cherry-Streusel Coffee Cake
• Sour Cherry Coffee Cake
  
• Cinnamon Croissant Coffee Cake
• Coconut-Pineapple Coffee Cake
• Lemon-Lavendar Coffee Cake
• Banana-Walnut Coffee Cake
• Cinnamon Coffee Cake Kotniuk

A former Slashfoodie herself, Nicole is the extraordinary baker behind Baking Bites -- a recipe blog for anyone with flour on their sleeves and a taste for the divine. She stepped away from the kitchen (actually, the horse stable) to chat with us a bit about life since Slashfood, and why her brownies are fudgier than mine.

What have you been up to since leaving Slashfood?
I write Baking Bites now. That's pretty much what I've been doing food-wise since I left Slashfood. It's not a very exciting answer.

So are you dedicating more time Baking Bites now?
Well, before I wrote for Slashfood, I had a blog for a couple of years called Baking Sheet, which I updated a couple of times per week. I kept that going while writing for Slashfood, but after I left, I changed the name of the site and made it more formal. I dedicate more time to my personal blog now than I did while I was writing – and before I was writing – for Slashfood.

It's clear from reading about you that you love to cook everything, so why a site mainly baking?
Because I like baking. All cooking is great, but for me, baking is really interesting. I like the flavors and how everything comes together. I love the magic and the science of the oven. Cooking for me is ... I don't want to say it easier, because I don't find baking difficult, but it is just not just as interesting to me usually. You can go from grilling a chicken to grilling a steak, but baking a cake is a little more special.

Anything happening in the kitchen today?
Not at the moment. Last night I made a lemon cake and later I might make some flatbread. The flatbread isn't set in stone yet. I'll make a list of things that I want to make but it changes. I'll get a whim for something with mint or vanilla and I'll totally change my mind.

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And here's a holiday-themed food recall.

Wegmans has recalled their holiday wreath-shaped kuchen coffee cakes (14 ounce) because the label doesn't disclose that there are pecans in the cakes. The store says they sold 2000 of them in the past month. They have a sale by date of December 12 (which is tomorrow). The recall effects all of Wegmans stores, which are located in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

Here's the info on the recall.

Don't be fooled by the name - this cake isn't coffee flavored. It's actually a coffee cake disguised as a bundt cake, with the layer of streusel that makes coffee cakes to delicious embedded in between two layers of moist, butterscotch-flavored cake. It was baked by Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess, who tells us all that a Coffee Bundt Cake is the perfect thing to serve when you want to have a cup of coffee and relax with a friend - and who doesn't want to do that at least once in a while? Jennifer says that the cake is both light and moist, with a tender interior that is flavored not only with butterscotch, but with vanilla and plain yogurt. It's not exactly health food, but the itself cake isn't too sweet and Jennifer managed to sneak a little bit of whole wheat flour into the batter, so a slice can be justified as an extra serving of whole grains. If you want to try the recipe, she has posted it here. I already have it bookmarked.

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• Mini foods are in! Including burgers, blini, and pudding.
• When will herring get respect?
• There's more than one kind of salt in the world (you can even post your thoughts in the Do You Love Salt forum).
• A Sicilian antipasto photo gallery.
• It's only October, but that doesn't mean you can't have Thanksgiving in a Pan. Though it's turkey mixed with brussel sprouts and onions...does that really make it Thanksgiving-ish?
• How to make your own bacon.
• This week's recipes: Cinnamon Coffee Cake, Gambian Peanut Stew, Marinated Zucchini Slices, and Quinoa-Stuffed Squash.