Well, last week I reviewed Marcy’s scones, which are a cake made to go with tea. This week, I will be reviewing Marcy’s coffee cakes, which are cakes made to go with coffee. Next week, I presume I’ll be reviewing something that goes with beer, like a Subway 6-foot Hoagie or a Taco Bell Super Mucho Burrito Grande. Que bueno!
Like many of us, I enjoy coffee, and the little cakes that go with them. I grew up drinking coffee (my mother found it easier than nursing), and I usually had 2 or 3 little DRAKE’S COFFEE CAKES in my lunch every day. Which also explains why I was an obese child. Really. We used to have to buy my clothes in a special section of the store, which for some overly-sensitive reason they didn’t call “THE FAT SECTION”. They called it “THE HUSKY DEPARTMENT”. That was where I got my clothes as a kid. Husky. I grew up thinking I should be towing an Eskimo around on a sled. Other kids dreamed of winning the World Series or the Super Bowl. Not me – I dreamed of winning the Iditarod. It was embarrassing for me. Actually, me and some of the other Husky kids were going to picket the store once – you know, walk back and forth in front with signs. We called it off the day before – after second thought, it sounded like it would be too much walking.
But I digress. I like coffee and coffee cakes. That was the point. So Marcy had an easy shot with this one. You wouldn’t think she could miss. You just wouldn’t….
SURPRISE!!!!
The 1929 coffee cakes have no connection with the DRAKE’S COFFEE CAKES of my youth. They remind me of something else from my youth. Possibly the baseballs we used in Little League. Although those were softer, but you get the point. And if someone hit one of Marcy’s coffee cakes down the right field line, Bobby Kaminski wouldn’t have bothered chasing it. Bobby always chased down baseballs bouncing down the right field line. Then he promptly threw the ball into the Parking Lot. The runner got the base he was going to, plus one extra. Then they called a time-out to look for the ball, during which FREEZ-POPS were half-price to distract the crowd. They called it ‘THE KAMINSKI RULE’. Bobby’s errant throw once broke the windshield on my father’s 1964 Chrysler Newport. Based on the condition of the rest of the car, the Albany (NY) Police refused to make a report. “It’s probably been broken for a while”, they said. Then they wrote my father a ticket for having replaced a broken rear turn signal with used birthday candles. Thanks a lot, Bobby Kaminski.
Back to Marcy’s coffee cakes. These were not really anything like the Coffee Cakes most of us would expect. They were more like stale biscuits. With icing. Or perhaps small pieces of highway with overcooked nuts on top. REAL coffee cakes are supposed to be a pleasant ACCOMPANIMENT to coffee. These would REQUIRE the coffee just to WASH THEM DOWN. They are 3-D CAKES: Dry, Doughy, and Difficult. Either something went wrong, or these were meant to be served with gallon jugs of coffee. THESE were a DESSERT? No wonder people were thinner back then.
Often, when I write these reviews, I try to think of WHAT ingredient needed to be more EVIDENT in the final product. In this case, I’m not sure. I want to say “ALL OF THEM”, but it’s clear that these had more than enough dough. Also, the burned nuts could probably have been cut back. Or eliminated. Yeah – that’s it – eliminated. Don’t put them on the cakes to begin with. Just burn the nuts and throw them out back as a test for the chipmunks. Serves ‘em right – the little striped rats…. I’d probably recommend increasing the sugar. The recipe called for 4 tablespoons… I’d probably increase that to 4 pounds instead. And the glaze was pretty good. More glaze – less cake. Maybe just skip the cakes altogether and serve glaze. No nuts though…
Marcy reads these reviews, so it is at GREAT cost to myself personally that I am forced to rate the COFFEE CAKES with only ONE HAPPY FACE. I would like to give them more, but it would be a sham. It would be like putting Bobby Kaminski on the Little League All-Star team. Come on – his own MOTHER used to boo him. She’d yell “You stink, Kaminski! You’re riding home in the back seat!”. I think he’s a lawyer now. Bobby Kaminski cost us a game against the South Pearl Army-Navy Store Red Sox when I was 10. I never forgave him for that. We would have won. He made six errors. He struck out nine times. He wet himself in the on-deck circle. TWICE! His mother was right. And THEN there was the time Bobby Kaminski, or “Booby Kaminski” as we called him, had a pop fly hit RIGHT AT HIM, and despite that, he…..
Oh – sorry – coffee cakes…. I get discombobulated. Yeah – one happy face. Because I haven’t figured out the graphic for a “Frowny Face” yet. Someday….
