German Coffee Cake

There are two possible ways I could go about explaining why I decided to make this coffee cake and why it's so special to my family...so instead of leaving you in suspense for the rest of your wonderful lives (because obviously you'd be missing out) I'll give you both. Thank me later :)

First, the family reasoing- my mom practically grew up on this stuff. Well, I shouldn't exactly say stuff, because something so delicious and classic as this coffee cake really isn't stuff. Rather, a culinary work of art: a gourmet breakfast that my mom's grandma, more specifically her mumum, would make for them while she lived in their house. I never got to meet my mumum, but hearing about her cooking and baking all my life makes me think we'd get along perfectly like butter and honey, chocolate and caramel. Catch my drift?

Second, my mom loosely challenged me this summer in saying that "if you can perfect mumum's cake then I'll send you over to culinary school in France." HELLO, how could I say no to that?

And well, I kind of lied. Third, our good neighbors just had a baby. This makes two cakes and is the perfect little treat.

So we had some buttermilk. Our neighbors had a baby. I'd never made it before. I wanted to give my mom a slice of her childhood. And yes, I was secretly crossing my fingers about the culinary school bet...

German Coffee Cake

4 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

2 cups of well shaken buttermilk

1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease two 9 inch cake pans. In a measuring cup, stir together 1/2 cup of the buttermilk and 2 tsp. baking soda. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, sugar and salt into the bowl of a standing mixer. Then, re-sift the mixture into a separate bowl for a total of two "sifts." Cream the butter in the mixer on medium speed. Slowly begin to add in the flour mixture, about 1 cup at a time until the consistency is even. *Adding the flour into the creamed butter eliminates the chance that you have a flour explosion, and the creamed butter allows for an even lighter cake. Measure out 3 cups of this mixture and set aside.

To the flour/butter/sugar mix, add the remaining 1 1/2 cups buttermilk and eggs until smooth before adding the standing 1/2 buttermilk/soda mix.

Divide the batter evenly among the two pans and then top each with 1 1/2 cups of the set aside flour mix. Sprinkle with additional sugar and cinnamon (about 3 tbs. sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon usually does the trick). Bake for 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean.