The History Of Coffee Cake
Cake historians suggest that coffee cake was not invented by a pastry chef along time ago but rather it evolved; beginning with tasty honey cakes then progressing to French galettes which inspired fruitcakes which led to creating the sweet yeast rolls which inspired the Danish cakes which contained coffee. Eventually the cakes were made in mass production and have become very common.
Recipes Brought To America
The idea of a coffee cake, which in the early years was simply consuming some sweet types of cakes while sipping on a cup of coffee, probably began in Europe during the seventeenth century. Historians have come up with this hypothesis because countries in Europe were well known for serving sweet yeast breads and when coffee arrived on the scene they made a great combination in the morning. Historians have noted that the Germans, the Scandinavians as well as the Dutch immigrants brought with them their various recipes for the tasty pastry and therefore introduced coffee cake to America.
It is believed that the early versions of coffee cake resembled bread more than they resembled cake. They were basically made from flour, some eggs, yeast, some sugar, nuts, various dried fruits as well as sweet spices. Over the years coffee cake evolved in America and it began to feature cheese, yogurt, various sugared fruits and a variety of creamy types of filling.
German And Holland Communities
The German as well as the Holland communities were prominent in New York, Delaware and in New Jersey and were well known for their coffee cakes in the colonial days. Their recipes are very similar to the recipes for the pastry that are used today. The Scandinavians were advocates of the coffee break and they desired something sweet with their coffee and thus contributed to the evolution of their tasty cake. The Scandinavians were just as proud of their abilities to produce the tasty cake and other varieties of pastries as the people who emigrated from Central Europe to America.
In the book Listening to America, the author claims that in the year 1879 coffee cake became a well known term in America. Historians have gone through old cook books and have concluded that recipes for coffee cake were being published for everyday American homemakers during the late eighteen hundreds. There are numerous varieties of this type of cake and a couple of the popular varieties are the streusel version and the crumb cake and streusel variation.
