I love finding vintage cookbooks. They make great decor and I love flipping through the old recipes although I rarely make them. This month, I decided it's time to actually make something from one of the books in my collection and see how it is.
I picked up this recipe binder at an estate sale awhile back and Cinnamon Coffee Cake sounded like the perfect treat to kick off the fall/back-to-school season with. I trust any recipe that looks well-loved and, judging by the messy pages, this one was made quite a few times over the years.
One problem came up pretty quickly however. I could tell from reading over the recipe that a lot of details and instructions were missing. But I decided to try this cake anyway and do some guesswork along the way.
I'll take you through the process of making this cake, but I'll also include a revised, final version of the recipe if you want to make it yourself.
I started by sifting my dry ingredients and setting them aside. In another bowl, I creamed together my butter and sugar. A note in the recipe (that I read after the fact) made it seem like I was only supposed to add half my sugar at this point and the rest after adding the eggs... This was also the first I was hearing about any eggs so I had to guess how many to use. Two seemed like a good number.
I combined my wet and dry ingredients which resulted in more of a dough than a batter. That's when I realized I was never told when to add the milk... I threw it in (because where else is it going to go besides in the cake at some point?) and the batter started to look a lot better.
At this point, I noticed an additional list of ingredients for a topping so I mixed those together (although apparently I was supposed to "rub" them together) and sprinkled them on top.
I used a different size pan (because it was prettier) which resulted in a slightly different bake time by about 10 minutes. I just eyeballed it and used the toothpick method to determine when it was done.
The cake rose a lot and looked and smelled amazing! It's best served warm and, of course, with your favorite coffee. Here's my recipe for white chocolate mocha if you need a suggestion.
I would've loved if this recipe had been written down a little more clearly and thoroughly, but all in all I think the cake turned out great and I'll be turning to my vintage cookbook collection a lot more often after this.
As promised, here's a revised and organized version of this recipe so you'll have an easier time making it than I did.
