Baking with Coffee

 

This week’s bake is a Blum’s Cofffee Crunch Cake.  Martha Stewart recreates the iconic dessert from Blum's Bakery in San Francisco. It teams a light sponge cake with rich coffee frosting and crunchy shards of coffee-flavored candy.

The bakery started as a confectionery in 1892 when New Orleans native Samuel Blum opened a small candy shop on Sutter and Polk in San Francisco. After Samuel died, his son Jack ran the growing business. It fell to Jack’s son-in-law, Fred Levy, to drive the company’s success. In 1934, when Levy took over Blum’s management, the company still sold the same fin de siècle candies. The former securities salesman instructed his candy makers to produce a new confection every day.

A failed candy experiment inspired the creation of Blum’s renowned Coffee Crunch Cake. Originally spelled Koffee Krunch Kake, it was invented by accident by master baker Ernest Weil in the 1940s. When an employee overboiled soft coffee candy, Weil smashed the hard substance into pieces. The Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef repurposed the mistake, decorating one of his sponge and whipped cream frosting cakes with the delicious honeycomb fragments.

Here is the recipe, adapted by Martha Stewart:

Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

6 large eggs, separated

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Coffee Frosting

Coffee Crunch

Directions

Step 1

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add 3/4 cup water, oil, egg yolks, zest, and vanilla; beat until smooth.

Step 2

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk egg whites on medium-high speed. With machine running, add remaining 3/4 cup sugar in a slow steady stream, beating until incorporated and stiff glossy peaks form.

Step 3

Remove bowl from mixer. Gently but thoroughly, fold beaten egg whites into batter, in two additions. Pour batter into a 10-inch tube pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Remove from oven, and invert onto a narrow necked bottle if your pan doesn't have feet. Let stand until cool, about 1 hour, before removing pan.

Step 4

Place cake on a serving platter. Cover cake with an even layer of frosting. Just before serving, sprinkle top and sides of cake generously with coffee crunch.

Here are some pictures from the bake:

Have a great day !   Rob & Linda ****