Tonight I tried for the second time to make coffee cakes "just like mom makes". This time I was successful. I should have taken pictures of my first disastrous try. I had asked my mom for her recipe which she happily shared with me. I labored over the dough which was crumbly and dry and never really felt or looked like a roll dough. Then there was the cream mixture. It got too hot too fast and burned a bit on the bottom of the pan so the mixture had burned bits in what was supposed to be a creamy texture. When I put it all into a pan and baked it, I tried for HOURS to bake it long enough for the center to get "set". It weighed about 10 pounds and looked like vomit! It was such a disappointment. I ended up dumping the whole thing in the garbage.
A few days later, I talked to my mom and told her about my coffee cake failure. Boy, did both of us get a good laugh. It seems as though I misread the recipe. The dough and cream mixture recipe makes eight small coffee cakes (pie pan size) not ONE coffee cake in that same small pie pan. No wonder my mixture never set up and was running all over the inside of my oven. So armed with that knowledge, tonight I was on a mission to create the perfect coffee cake. They may not have turned out perfectly, but they taste and look pretty close to how I remember my mom's looking and tasting!
Here is the RIGHT WAY to make some delicious coffee cakes. For the dough, you could use any roll dough recipe. You can make the dough the traditional way or if you're the owner of a bread machine, roll dough made that way works great too. Tonight, I chose the bread machine way. Here are the ingredients I used, added in this order:
1/4 cup of water
2 cups of milk
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons shortening
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3 1/2 cups of flour
1 package of yeast
I set my bread machine for the "dough cycle" and after about an hour and half, I had wonderfully elastic dough!
I cut the dough into eight pieces.
Pressing the dough into the pie pans was the fun part!
Next comes the coffee cake filling. Start with 4 eggs in a stove top safe pan. Whisk well to break up the yolks.
To the eggs, add 2 cups of cream.
Whisk in 1 1/2 cups of sugar.
Bring this mixture to a boil. Whisk vigorously so you don't get burned bits on the bottom of the pan. No worries if you get a few brown pieces floating around. I used a fine strainer to get ride of the burned/caramelized bits. Once this mixture starts to thicken a bit like pudding, remove it from the heat and add 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Mix well.
Pour the this creamy mixture onto the prepared roll dough and spread to the edges.
I used canned peaches for my fruit but any fruit would work well - just make sure it is a bit softened.
Sprinkle with a bit of cinnamon.
Bake in a 350 degree oven until the dough turns golden brown and the cream mixture "sets".
I froze a few, gave one to my brother in law who came to visit and put a few in the fridge for my family.
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