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.

Mr. D's Coffee Cake

One of the cooks for my college fraternity was known as "Mrs. D."  I'm not even sure if I knew what the D stood for back then.  I certainly don't know it, now.  Once a week, Mrs. D would make coffee cake to go with breakfast.  Some years later, I reunited with one of my fraternity brothers who happened to have Mrs. D's coffee cake recipe.  He said that it was a disaster when he made it.  There is the last step with the cinnamon that I've never been quite clear what to do with.  I've tried melting it and pouring it over the batter before baking and after baking.  I've also tried mixing the ingredients cold and sprinkling it over the batter.  I've had some success with all of these.

Now, I'm going to try to adapt it to use the discards from refreshing my sourdough starter.  Since I've experimented with the recipe enough on my own, I am now claiming this recipe as my own.  From here on, it will be known as Mister D's coffee cake.

Mr. D’s Coffee Cake
Remove 4 oz. of starter from the fridge. Add
Milk	2/3 Cup
Flour	¾ Cup (4 oz.)
Mix and set in warm place for 1 hour. Cream these items together
Sugar	1 Cup
Butter	2 Tbl
Salt	½ tsp
1 Egg
Combine the two mixtures and pour into a well-greased 9x9 baking pan. Cream the following ingredients together and sprinkle on top of the cake batter
Sugar	½ Cup
Butter	1 Tbl
Cinnamon	1 Tbl
Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F

My topping preparation was more coffee-cake like today.  I continued to mix the sugar, butter, and cinnamon until it was a homogeneous mixture.  It looked almost like sand.  (It would have been a good idea to take a picture, but it's too late for that, now.)  It covered the cake batter in a nice even layer.

The result looked OK when it first came out of the oven,

but it was kind of gooey inside.

It still tasted good.  After all, with all that sugar and butter and cinnamon, how could it taste bad.  I'm going back to Mrs. D's original recipe, next time, without the sourdough starter.

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
Sprinkle on top of the cake batter and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F

I think I'm done with trying to figure out what to do with my starter discards.  I think I'll just cut back on how much flour and water I add to refresh the starter so that I have 8 ounces of starter after refresh--4 ounces for the next loaf of bread and 4 ounces to refresh.  I guess that means adding 2 ounces of water and 2 ounces of flour when I feed.  Let's hope that keeps the starter happy.