December 7, 2005
WHAT WOULD ANGELENOS KNOW ABOUT AMERICA?:
An overnight sensation: Mix up a buttery yeasted dough the evening before, and bake a superb coffeecake for breakfast. (Donna Deane, December 7, 2005, LA Times)
STAND in line at any cappuccino bar and your eyes are drawn to the pastry case, where pieces of streusel-topped "coffeecake" wink back at you temptingly. Don't waste the calories. Coffeecake — real coffeecake — is not just a cold, sweet hunk of generic cinnamon-topped cake gobbled down in the front seat of your car.Real coffeecake is a Sunday-morning experience. It begins (if you're a lucky houseguest) with the unforgettable aroma of bread filling the house on a winter's morning, a yeasty smell so tantalizing that it seduces you out from the cozy bedcovers and down to the kitchen. There you pour yourself a fragrant cup of hot, strong coffee and score that slice of warm, fresh, not-too-sweet "cake" (but it's more like a buttery sweet bread), made rich with a filling that incorporates just a few luxurious details: hazelnuts, maybe, or citrus peel or chopped bittersweet chocolate. Each bite stands up to the java.
Real coffeecake is also the all-American answer to tea time. It's the warming, not-too-heavy snack to go with that 4 p.m. espresso.
Except that there's nothing American about espresso. A cup of coffee and a Drake's, that's another story.... Posted by Orrin Judd at December 7, 2005 10:26 AM
No way dude, it is all about the Tastykakes. Other than the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Ben Franklin and cheesesteaks, one of the few good things to come out of Philadelphia.
Posted by: pchuck at December 7, 2005 11:26 AMOJ:
I'll agree more with you than her. I don't know of any cake that includes yeast and a rise. Coffeecake at our house was a yellow cake (probably mix) baked with a streusel topping of pecans, brown sugar and cinnamon - my Midwestern madeleine.
On special occasions, we had the classic cinnamon bun except left whole, formed into a ring and glazed with white icing (powdered sugar and milk).
On the commercial front, I still might buy a pack of Hostess powdered sugar or chocolate covered mini-donuts, heaven help me.
Posted by: Rick T. at December 7, 2005 11:31 AMDrake's ruled the market in New York City and New England, while they and Tastykakes battled for supremacy along with the Hostess crew in the wilds of central New Jersey and in regions of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York.
To my adolescent tatst buds, Tastykake had the better tasting body of the cake (better chemical preservatives, I presume), but they couldn't hold a candle to the topping on the Drake's coffee cake.
Posted by: John at December 7, 2005 12:49 PMDonuts.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 7, 2005 1:44 PMCrumbbuns (sp?) The bakery version of drake's.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at December 7, 2005 2:35 PM