2016年7月29日金曜日 - 
Jason: A recipe of Jason's coffee cake
It's summertime
again, and some of you might remember reading an earlier blog of mine on how I
really loathe this season, but when I was growing up the one positive was going
to my grandparents' house during my summer vacation from school. They lived in
Connecticut, in the northeast part of the United States. The weather was
usually a few degrees cooler than my home state of Virginia, but it could still
get plenty hot at times.
One of the
activities my grandparents enjoyed was playing cards with their friends and
neighbors on Friday or Saturday nights, whenever everyone was free. I would
join in, and I didn't realize it at the time, but they would usually lose on
purpose, letting the kid win. After the game, my grandmother would make coffee
and serve dessert, which was usually a crumb coffee cake. It was store-bought,
but she could make her own when needed. I loved eating it, particularly since
that specific brand wasn't sold in my area of the United States. 
Flash-forward
thirty years: I'm living in Japan and
unable to buy that cake, so I asked my mother to dig-up my grandmother's recipe
and email it to me. Now I make it a few times a year, but always at least once
during the summer to reminisce about those visits to my grandparents' house all
those years ago.
Here is Grandma's
Crumb Coffee Cake recipe:
4 cups flour
1 ¾ cup sugar
1 stick butter,
softened
3 teaspoons baking
soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup whole milk
Topping
1 stick butter
½ cup brown sugar
3 teaspoons
cinnamon
1 pinch of salt
powdered sugar (to
dust the topping)
Preheat your oven
to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius)
In a large bowl,
mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Scoop out and set aside 2 cups of
the mixture in a smaller bowl for the topping.
In the large bowl,
add softened butter, eggs and milk and mix well.
For the topping,
melt 1 stick of butter in microwave safe bowl, and add brown sugar, cinnamon,
pinch of salt and the two cups of flour set aside earlier, mixing well with a
wooden spoon until the crumbs become pea-sized.
Grease and flour a
13 x 9 pan, and spread the batter evenly.
Cover the entire
cake with the crumb topping.
Bake for 30
minutes.
Let cool for 20-30
minutes, and dust with powdered sugar.
Enjoy!