As anyone who sees my posts knows I bake for my mom fairly often.. (her easier to please partner is included too) She is not terribly happy with old age, frailty and the state of the world lately.

While she is a 60 year rural Maine resident my mom grew up in a tiny jewish diaspora town in NJ and spent her early adulthood in NYC. She takes her baked goods very seriously. When her dad taught in Cambridge (ie Boston) for a year when she was in HS a family friend from Philadelphia sent her sourdough rye weekly. Her favorite part of Maine’s foody culture is baked goods.

In her old age whenever we go anywhere she is thinking about where to get a snack. The choices are markedly improved from years ago but still limited. I have been trying to make a good coffee cake for her.

Ok on to the cake…. She likes crumb cakes and babkas etc… In the past year I make her the King Arthur cinnamon crisp coffee cake a few times. She liked it but mentioned how rich it is. I made several babkas - semi sucessful. Very dense and rich.

The day before yesterday I had asked them to pick up some cinnamon for me. They brought me three bags. And mentioned crumb cake again. They were expecting a rare visit from beloved frail friends yesterday. So I got up early made up a yeast risen cake. I used the chocolate filling and the cinnamon crumb from the King Arthur recipe. I have a basic high hydration bread dough I use for focaccias. I replaced some of the water with butter and eggs. Added some sugar.

This came out really well. The crumb was soft and fluffy but not too sweet. The cinnamon cocoa filling was thin chocolatey gooey layer. The crumbs were sweet rich and cinnamony. The friends all asked to bring some home. My mom and her guy were happy and have leftovers. As do I.

BUT I think the dough still was lean enough that it will fairly stale quickly. I feel like I have a handle in what I am going for now. I am very close. I need a slightly sweet dough that is rich enough to last a few days. Suggestions for a moderately rich dough? I will experiment but with baking I tend to like to tweak a recipe rather than winging it.

Note to self: Do not carry a bottle of vanilla in your back pocket. My pants smell good but that was an expensive spill.

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/cinnamon-crisp-coffee-cake-recipe