Hungarian Coffee Cake

Note:  This is Hungarian Coffee Cake.  This is not “Monkey Bread.”  For those who have had both, they’ll notice the difference immediately.  Monkey Bread is just a mess of dough and stuff dumped together in a pan.  This takes a long time and is carefully baked to perfection.

Additionally, this isn’t a Hungarian Recipe.  I researched it a few years ago and discovered that it is actually of Scottish origin, which makes sense since my Scotch grandmother gave us the recipe. 

Hungarian Coffee Cake

In glass bowl mix 1 pkg of yeast with 1/4 cup very warm water and a pinch of sugar.

1/2 stick of butter
1/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup of milk
3-6 cups of flour

2 cups sugar
cinnamon
1-2 sticks of butter

Heat milk, sugar, and butter until butter is completely melted with the milk. Beat egg and add to mixture. Let cool to very warm rather than ‘hot’ and add yeast mixture (assuming it has bubbled) to this. Stir in 3-4 cups of flour. Add flour until the dough is just barely not sticky. Knead well. Place in greased bowl and cover with a towel. Let rise.

Take an angel food cake pan with the center that LIFTS OUT and grease well. Melt butter, mix cinnamon and sugar to taste… generally is best if slightly too cinnamony.

Use a biscuit cutter, lid to large cinnamon container, or a lawreys lid (washed) for cutting circles. Flour the surface and when the dough has doubled, punch down and roll out to about 1/4″ thick or so. Try to handle the dough as little as possible once you’ve rolled it. Cut circles by dipping in flour when necessary. Dip each circle in the butter, and then into the cinnamon/sugar mixture and start layering from the outside in. Alternate brick style. Do not pack the layers but rather lay the circles against the previous layer. When you get to the middle, tuck extras to fill the circle without packing it. Use extra circles to bake alone on the cookie sheet and take out eariler.

Heat oven to 400 while this rises some more. Place on cookie sheet and in hot oven, bake for 25-45 minutes (seems to depend upon the oven.) It is done when the tops of the ‘cake’ is golden brown from baking, not from cinnamon. Let cool for 5 minutes, then remove the center of the pan and place on a plate.

Drizzle with icing over the top and down the sides and for holidays, add marichino cherry halves for a festive look.

We prefer ours hot from the oven or, if served later, wrapped well in aluminum foil while hot to ‘sweat’ a bit.

 

Enjoy!

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