Welcome to week #3 of the challenge, as I cook recipes from the 1929 book. I am beginning to think things were very different back then, in taste and texture…… or maybe it is just my baking.

This week I am attempting to make individual coffee cakes. I say ‘attempting’ because, no matter how many times I read the recipe first, it doesn’t seem to help. Maybe you’ll do better.

I gathered what I thought were all the ingredients together, so I could take the pic. I was wondering why there were no eggs in the recipe. It turns out there are – they had hidden them under the guise of ‘two eggs’.  (Okay, as I was rereading this, I just noticed it said one egg and I put in two!) I also forgot the confectioner’s sugar.

I mixed all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, then added the shortening. So far, so good.

Next I beat the eggs (my favorite part – relieves stress).

Added in the milk, beat a little more……

Added the liquid ingredients into the dry, and mixed until it formed a soft dough.

I put it onto a lightly floured piece of wax paper and flattened it out a bit, so I could cut it into six equal pieces.

Well, they were supposed to be equal…….

Now here is where I should have paid closer attention. I flattened and stretched out each piece and cut it in half.

Brushed each half with melted butter……

Folded the half onto itself…..

And started twisting it into the cresent shape. It was really hard to twist such a small piece. Turns out I wasn’t supposed to cut it in half. I thought the recipe made twelve coffee cakes. Really, really small cakes. I guess it would have been much easier if I paid attention to the recipe, especially the part where it said makes six.

They are not looking like any crescents you would find at a store.

All twelve are ready to be sprinkled with chopped nuts and put in the oven. I brushed them with a little more butter, just so the nuts would stick.

All sprinkled and ready to bake. I didn’t put nuts on a few, because I know Jon prefers without. Now this is in the “But I knew better” department – baking them at 450 degrees for 20 minutes is going to leave me with burnt nuts…. which it did.

All baked, burnt nuts and all, and ready to ice with the confectioner’s sugar and water mixture.

Now here is what mine looked like……

 
And this is what the looked like back in 1929. Jon said to me, “That photo of them looks great! They came out so perfect.” This was the pic he was looking at.

 
Here are my thoughts, when I was starving – “These are good.” Here are my thoughts after I ate a few – “Why did I eat those?”

 
I am not sure how much my screw-ups contributed, so I can’t really blame the recipe. It certainly isn’t close to what we think of as a coffee cake today. There is very little sugar in these recipes, much different from the cups of sugar called for in most of today’s recipes. To me, it seems much more like a biscuit than a cake. If you are looking for a sweet piece of cake, this is not the recipe for you. If you are after something to go with a cup of coffee, it wouldn’t be the worst thing you could choose. I know, not a ringing endorsement…… but at least the squirrels wouldn’t bring these back. Until next time…..