Coffee Cantata

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Kaffeekantate, written for performance in Zimmerman’s Coffee House in Leipzig, contains some of his most sublime music on a thoroughly ridiculous text. (The official name is Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, which translates “Be quiet, stop chattering.”)

Here Liesgen sings of her undying love for the drink:

Oh! how sweet coffee tastes—
lovelier than a thousand kisses,
smoother than muscatel wine.
Coffee, I must have coffee,
and if someone wants to give me a treat,
ah, just pour me out a coffee!

Coffee Cake (High Altitude)

I grew up calling this breakfast cake, since it’s eaten for Sunday breakfast (or, if church is late enough, brunch). But then Cat didn’t want to make dessert for Sunday evening, since we’d already had cake for breakfast. I’ve taken to calling it a pan-muffin, since it bears the same relationship to a muffin as a cake does to a cupcake. (The name isn’t perfect, but I can’t think of anything better. Ideas?) In any case, it makes for a perfect Sunday breakfast with an omelette and a bowl of fresh fruit.

It really is just a giant muffin. You make your favorite muffin batter and pour it into one pan instead of little cups. And, just as muffins can be anything from sawdust-and-glue bricks to poundcake monsters, so too can a pan-muffin be a “health food” or a millstone of trans fat and refined carbohydrates. Or it can be good.

There are many different ways to make this. You can fill it with fruit—blueberries, mandarin oranges, apple slices; you can mix in applesauce or overripe bananas; you can top it with pecans and butterscotch. (I like to mix an apple chopped into small pieces. If you do this, it may take a little longer to cook.) You can do any of the muffin variations in your cookbook. But the quintessential pan-muffin is a streusel topping over a not-too-sweet cake.

The streusel is tricky. If the clumps are too thick, they’ll sink into the cake (which makes a nice marbled effect, but leaves the top naked). The trick is to make a fine layer; the finely chopped nuts help with that. (If they’re chopped finely, they don’t overwhelm the texture.)

This recipe was developed at 4,000 feet. I know it works here. Let me know if it works where you live.

Pan-muffin

The perfect Sunday breakfast.

Dry stuff:
2 cups flour (I use 1 cup pastry wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose)
¼ cups sugar
½ t salt
½ t soda

Wet stuff:
¼ cup oil (or, better, melted butter)
2 eggs
1¼ cups buttermilk

Streusel:
2 T melted butter
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup oats or blended nuts

0. Preheat the oven to 375.
1. Mix the dry stuff together.
2. Mix the wet stuff together.
3. Stir the wet stuff into the dry stuff.
4. Pour the batter into a greased 8x8 pan.
5. Mix the streusel together.
6. Sprinkle the streusel on top.
7. Bake for 30 minutes.