The Spores and the Stone

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my battle with tiny mold spots on my rye bread.

I had been storing my bread in a one-gallon zip-lock bag, but by the end of a week, I was getting speckles of mold.  I decided to try storing the bread in a paper grocery bag.  That solved the mold problem, but the bread was stale in just a couple of days.

A web site suggested storing the bread in a cotton bag that they would be happy to sell me.  I had a hemp bag from a pair of Earth shoes (yes, they still make those) that I bought a few years, ago.

That worked a little better than the paper grocery bag, but still, by the end of a week, I had a rye flavored rock for the last few slices.  Not only that, but the bag was just a little bit bigger than my loaf of bread, so getting it in and out when the loaf was new was a problem.

This week, I am going to try a hybrid approach.  I just baked a loaf of bread, and I wrapped it in a cloth dish towel.  I plan to keep it there for a couple of days, but a the first sign of staleness, I'm going to put in in a zip-lock bag.  Stay tuned.

Mr. D's Coffee Cake revisited

This post is not related to sourdough.  I described in a previous post, a coffee cake made by my college fraternity's cook, Mrs D.  The original recipe has a step involving a butter, sugar, and cinnamon, mixture with which I've never been quite clear about what to do.

Mrs. D’s Coffee Cake
Cream these items together
Sugar	1 Cup
Butter	2 Tbl
1 Egg
Add to that mixture
Milk	1 Cup
Flour	1 ½ Cup
Salt	½ tsp
Baking Powder	2 tsp
Pour into a well-greased 9x9 baking pan.
Cream the following ingredients together until all of the butter clumps are gone.
Sugar	½ Cup
Butter	1 Tbl
Cinnamon	1 Tbl

Those last three ingredients go on top of the coffee cake, but do I put them on before baking?  Do I melt them to make a glaze?  If so, do I put that on before or after baking?

I've tried it just about every way.  None of them have quite matched my memory of Mrs. D's coffee cake.  I have found that putting it on top of the batter, makes the cake gooey.  This time, I decided to save this sandy mixture until the cake was baked and just sprinkle it on top.

Astute readers have probably noticed that there aren't any baking instruction in the above recipe.  My original copy of the recipe said to bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  The middle never seems to be cooked when tested with a toothpick.  The same was true for this batch.  I immediately put the cake back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Sprinkling the second mixture on top after baking is the closest that I've come to my memory Mrs. D's coffee cake.  However, all of that crumbly goodness falls off when I eat a piece.

Next time, I'm going to try putting the whole shebang back in the oven for a minute or two after I sprinkle.  My next try at this recipe is going to be

Mrs. D’s Coffee Cake
Cream these items together
Sugar	1 Cup
Butter	2 Tbl
1 Egg
Add to that mixture
Milk	1 Cup
Flour	1 ½ Cup
Salt	½ tsp
Baking Powder	2 tsp
Pour into a well-greased 9x9 baking pan.  Bake for 40 minutes at 350°F
Cream the following ingredients together until all of the butter clumps are gone.
Sugar	½ Cup
Butter	1 Tbl
Cinnamon	1 Tbl
Sprinkle on top of the cake after baking and put it back into the oven for a few minutes.