Andrea's Coffee Cake

Cake is a term with a long history (the word is of Viking origin, from the Old Norse kaka) and denotes a baked flour confection sweetened with sugar or honey; it is mixed with eggs and often, but not invariably, with milk and fat; and it has a porous texture from the mixture rising during cooking. It is not surprising that the frontiers between cake and bread, biscuit and bun are indistinct. The progenitor of all is bread in its simplest form. As techniques for baking and leavening developed, and eating patterns changed, what were originally regarded as froms of bread came to be seen as categories of their own and named accordingly. Certain Roman breads, enriched with eggs and butter, must have achieved a cake like consistency and thus approached one of these indistinct frontiers.

Europe and places such as North America where European influence is strong have always been the center of cakes. One might even draw a line more tightly, from English-speaking areas. No other language has a word that means exactly the same as the English 'cake.' The continental European gateau and torte often contain higher proportions of butter, eggs and enriching ingredients such as chocolate, and often lean towaars pastry rathern than cake. Central and East European items such as baba and the Easter kulich are likewise different. The western tradition of cakes applies little in Asia. In some countries western-style cakes have been adopted on a small scale, for example the small sponge cakes called kasutera in Japan. But the 'cakes' which are important in Asian are quite different from anything occidental for examples, see moon cakes and rice cakes of the Philippines. Lots of online recipes for dessert are available at the link.

The history of cakes, goes a long way back. Among the remains found in Swiss lake villages were crude cakes make from roughly crushed gains, moistened, compacted and cooked on a hot stone. Such cakes can be regarded as a form of unleavened bread, as the precursor of all modern European baked products. Some modern survivors of these mixtures still go by the name 'cake', for instance oatcakes, although these are now considered to be more closely related to biscuits by virtue of their flat, thin shape and brittle texture. Today Andrea’s coffee cake is quite interesting baked at home. If you love the art of baking, this recipe takes you one level up.

Ingredients
2 tablespoon margarine
100gms sugar
2 large eggs, well beaten
200gms flour, all-purpose
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
100ml sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup chopped nuts – your choice of nuts
3/4 cup melted butter

1. In a large bowl, mix all the cake ingredients together, blending well with a hand blender until smooth.
2. In a greased baking tray, pour 1/2 of the batter.Spread some of the chopped nuts on top. Pour the remaining batter on top.
3. pread more chopped nuts on top, then pour the melted butted on top of them.
4. Take in a preheated oven for about 40-45 minutes at 350 degree F.