If you are looking for the ultimate coffee cake look no further. This Moravian Coffee Cake is moist, fragrant, sweet and utterly scrumptious.
Today I have a guest blogger – my husband and partner of 36+ years. For most of those years Andrew never did ANY cooking or baking. Now that we are retired, he has taken up the measuring spoon and rolling pin! And I am the proud and happy beneficiary of his efforts. This Moravian Coffee Cake is one such very, very delicious example. So while this blog is called Lisa and Frances Cook, I’m thinking of changing the name to Lisa and Andrew Cook!
Hi! I’m Andrew, Lisa’s spouse, and I’m writing today about how I baked a Moravian Coffee Cake. Gosh, that’s such an unlikely sentence! Let’s put aside for now how it was that I finally started to learn how to bake after all these years, and start our story on page 124 of James Beard’s Beard on Bread, where he presents a recipe for Moravian Coffee Cake. It sounds really good, and it yields two loaves, baked in 9 x 5 x 3-inch bread pans. The addition of mashed potatoes makes a uniquely moist cake that holds up beautifully.
But…
Lisa and I have been enjoying the Great British Baking Show: Masterclass. One night we were watching how Paul Hollywood made an apricot couronne and I thought, wouldn’t it be great to make a coffee cake that looked like that? So I tried it and got a large ring, a bit flattened, but it tasted great!
But…
Wouldn’t it be even better if we added some nuts? And if it was baked in a tube pan?
Here’s the result!
For other lovely coffee cake recipes:
Italian Walnut and Raisin Coffee Cake
Gateau Breton – French Shortbread Cake
Recipe
Yield: 10 to 12 servings
Ingredients
4 to 4½ cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 packages active dry yeast (or 4½ tsp)
½ cup lukewarm tap water
½ cup granulated sugar
1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs
½ cup mashed potatoes (I used a Yukon Gold potato cooked in the microwave)
1 cup somewhat finely chopped walnuts
½ cup dark brown sugar (Light brown sugar is fine too.)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ cup melted butter
Confectioner’s sugar icing (Optional – but highly recommended! – see below)
Directions
Put ½ cup warm water in a mixing bowl, then add 2 tsp of the granulated sugar, whoosh it around, then add the yeast. Let the yeast proof for 8 to 10 minutes.
Then stir in 2 cups of the flour, the rest of the granulated sugar, the butter and the salt. Beat until smooth, either 300 strokes by hand OR use a dough hook and stand mixer on low for a few minutes.
Blend in the eggs and mashed potatoes, then add 1 cup flour and beat 150 strokes by hand OR a minute on low in the mixer with a dough hook. Stir in more flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Either turn it onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand, or run it on low in the stand mixer until the dough is smooth and satiny, about 8 to 10 minutes. Shape it into a ball and place in a lightly buttered bowl, turning to butter all sides. Cover and let rise in a room temperature, draft-free place until doubled, about 1½ hours.
Punch the dough down, divide in half, and let rest 10 minutes. Mix together the nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon.
Roll out each portion of dough into a roughly 13 x 10 in. rectangle. Brush with melted butter, then sprinkle each rectangle with about one third of the nut mixture.
With the long edge facing you, roll the dough up tightly into a log.
Repeat for the other portion. Butter the inside of a 10 to 12 cup tube pan with straight sides and a removable bottom. Scatter some of the remaining nut mixture on the bottom. Place one of the rolls into the pan, starting at the center and spiraling outwards. Brush with some melted butter and sprinkle on some nut mixture. Place the second roll in the pan on top of the first roll, starting at the center and spiraling outward in the opposite direction. Brush with some melted butter and sprinkle with the remaining nut mixture.
Let rise, covered with a cloth at room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 45 minutes. If the top seems to be browning too quickly, lightly cover it with some foil and continue baking until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake sounds a bit hollow when tapped with a wooden spoon. Cool in pan five minutes. Remove from pan. When the cake is completely cooled, you can ice it.
Confectioner’s Sugar Icing
2 tbsp milk or water
a pinch salt
1 cup (and a bit) confectioner’s sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
Put milk and vanilla in bowl. Add 1 cup confectioner’s sugar. Whisk until smooth. The icing should be thick enough to not completely run off the cake, but thin enough to drizzle and cascade down the sides a bit. Add a bit more sugar if too thin or a bit more liquid if too thick. Drizzle over the top and let it run down the sides. It’s best to do this over parchment or waxed paper so that you don’t make a mess. Let your inner Jackson Pollack out! Allow the icing to set before cutting. To store, wrap the cake up well or place under a cake dome. This can also be frozen.
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Q. and A.
Q. Why roll out the dough into two tubes? Can’t I just roll it out into one?
A. Sure. I did the dough in two portions because they’d be easier for me to handle.
Q. Do I have to put the dough into the tube pan in alternating spirals?
A. Nope. You can put it in any way you want. Mine turned out to look like a fossil nautilus shell, but I didn’t know that when I started.
Q. Andrew, would it be OK to not use the tube pan? I want to use this dough to make a couronne like Paul Hollywood did.
A. Absolutely, go for it.
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