Cinnamon Cake

Original cinnamon cake recipe.

Ok, I thought I'd start with an easy one. Cinnamon cake, #60. To the right you'll see the exact recipe from the cookbook. Sugar, butter, milk, baking powder, flour -- normal enough.

Cinnamon cake before baking.

"Punch holes in the batter and fill with brown sugar and cinnamon and seal the holes with butter." Hmmm...this is where the first decisions must be made. How much brown sugar and how much butter? Sure, it's easy to say a sprinkle of cinnamon in each hole, that shouldn't make much difference in a batter but butter and sugar? That could make a difference.

So I decide on a big pinch of brown sugar squeezed together tightly (like you pack brown sugar normally) and then about a half inch square of butter (completely randomly chosen). You can see the results to the right. BTW, punching holes in the batter was difficult - I'd punch it and it would, of course, just fill right back in!

And then, how many holes? I decided on six.

And what kind of pan was I supposed to put this cake in? I chose a loaf pan.

The last decision - what is a medium hot oven? I went with 350 degrees.

So into the oven it went.

Cinnamon cake after baking.

20 minutes later - that cake is definitely not done! Ok, 10 more minutes.

Tested with the toothpick method and it came out clean so I declared the cake done  (see picture to the right).

So, if I were to make this recipe again this is what I would change. 

First, I would  "punch" more holes to have more brown sugar, butter and cinnamon.

Second, I would bump the oven up to 375 degrees.

Overall, this cake turned out nicely flavored although maybe not all that attractive. It tasted like a pound cake but without the normal level of ingredients of a pound cake. It was dense and heavy and the bottom was like an "upside down" cake where the brown sugar, cinnamon and butter made a nice crusty bottom. Perhaps I punched the holes too deep?

Besides simply eating it with butter (melted butter made it even better!) I used it to make french toast for Van. He LOVED it! 

French toast made with the cinnamon cake.

Cinnamon cake simply sliced.

The Idea

One very common Saturday morning, this past Fall 2014, in Frederick, MD, my husband, Van Corey, were driving around looking for yard sales. We happened across a great street in downtown that had cute, little, older homes and a bunch of yard sales. And these people knew the real deal about yard sales - the prices! We found lots of good treasures: glass insulators for Van, birding books, binoculars, pristine glass wine decanters, and my biggest treasure - an old, tattered copy of The Lancaster County Farm Cook Book (A Collection of Pennsylvania Dutch Recipes from the Garden Spot of America) circa 1967.

So the idea was born. I was going to make recipes from this cookbook! That might not sound like a big deal, right? I'm a good cook. I cook from scratch all the time. Without recipes, with just an idea in my head of what goes together and the theories born and tested through the years of watching every cooking show available on TV. One of my fondest memories is watching Yan Can Cook with my dad when I was a kid.

So what's the big deal about cooking recipes from this cookbook? Well.....this book doesn't give you the things you expect, like, the temperature of the oven, what kind of pan to use, and sometimes even how much of an ingredient to use! Say what? How is that a cookbook?

Let the fun begin! I will pick a recipe, tell you what the cookbook instructions are and then tell you what I did and what the results were. That's what this blog will be about.
Hope you enjoy it!