The Altitude Adjustment Section
I love a good coffee cake, don’t you? And I especially love a yeast-based sweet cake which walks the line between bread and cake. Here is an oldie but a goodie, flavored with cardamon, from one of the first cookbooks I ever used — The Sunset Cookbook of Breads, first published in 1966.
Ingredients
1 package of active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cardamon
1 cup scalded milk, cooled to lukewarm
4 eggs
4 cups A.P. flour
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
Procedure
Dissolve yeast in warm water in the bowl of your electric mixer. Let it develop for 10 minutes till foamy. Now add the salt sugar, cardamon, milk, eggs, and beat till blended. Add flour gradually to yeast mixture. Beat at low speed till batter is smooth. Next add the butter and mix till blended. Butter a large 10 cup baking mold or 2 small molds and sprinkle with granulated sugar covering all surfaces, tap out extra. You have two baking options- for an airy coarsely textured coffee cake turn the batter immediately into the prepared pan and let rise till it reaches 1/4 inch from the top of the pan which will take about 1 1/2 hours. Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 60-70 minutes in a tubeless mold or 40-50 minutes in a ring mold.If you want a finer texture, let the dough rise in the mixing bowl till double about 2 hours, then beat down and turn into prepared mold and then let rise again and bake same as above.You can also add raisins, dried cranberries, cinnamon, chopped nuts, you get the idea.
