Comfort in the Kitchen

I have always loved cooking, and from a very young age, I spent time working through tough moments in my life with the comfort of flour, sugar and butter in the kitchen. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, I was a student teacher at a middle school in California, and finishing up my final quarter of my masters in education. I loved my job, my students, and my colleagues and I was heartbroken when I had to say my final in-person goodbyes to my first set of students. Just as I had in the past, I took my confusion, worry and stress to the kitchen, and began to procross the difficult road that I knew was ahead of me. One of the first recipes that I baked in quarantine was coffee cake because I had been talking to a friend, who had never tried it before. As I listened to my mixer beat the sugar and butter together, I could feel a sense of calm wash over me. Baking, even though it’s science, has an interesting paradox of being confusing and straightforward at the same time. I typically understand how the ingredients work together, and the process of following each step of a recipe brings a sense of peace. As I incorporated the eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, dash of allspice, salt into my mixture, the daunting nature of a global pandemic hit me. How was I going to adapt to online learning? How was I going to get a job in the fall as a teacher? How was I going to handle the next unknown amount of time? The smells wafting from my mixer comforted me, and even though the smell was confusing to my nose, I knew that the end product would be delicious and bring warmth to those who tried it. As I poured the mix into a pan and set it in the oven, a new sense of ambition began to bubble in me. If I could bake this wonderful cake, how hard could it be to face a pandemic? As I said this to myself, I knew how ridiculous it sounded, but I knew at this point I had to fake it until I made it. So as my coffee cake was baking I sat down and began to plan the next few weeks of virtual learning and by the time the timer went off, I had a rough plan of what I wanted to do. Taking the cake out of the oven and sampling it for the first time was glorious. I had worked hard to produce this thing, and I knew I could do the same with any task put in front of me during this pandemic. As I delivered baked goods to my friends doorsteps, while maintaining 6 feet of distance, and wearing a face mask, I hoped that a taste of coffee cake would bring the same comfort to my friends as it did to me in the tough early days of the pandemic.

Coffee Cake
Ingredients:
o 1 cup vegetable oil
o 2 large eggs, room temperature
o 1 tsp vanilla
o 1 cup milk
o 1 cup granulated sugar
o 3 cups all-purpose flour
o 3 tsp baking powder
o ½ tsp salt
o 1 ½ cup brown sugar
o 2 tsp cinnamon
o ½ cup butter (melted)
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350*F
2) In the bowl of a standing mixer combine oil, eggs, vanilla and milk on low speed.
3) Add granulated sugar, all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until incorporated,
scraping down the bowl occasionally.
4) Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
5) Make streusel topping by combining brown sugar and cinnamon.
6) Pour ½ of the batter into the pan and even coat the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle ½ of the
streusel evenly over the top of the batter in the pan.
7) Add the remaining batter to the pan. Cover with the rest of the streusel.
8) Pour the melted ½ cup of butter over the top of the batter in the pan.
9) Cover with aluminum foil and cook for 25-30 minutes.
10) Uncover and cook for another 10 minutes.
11) Cool and enjoy!

March 18, 2020

Amy Greever

Amy Greever

Text story

recipe

English Home & Family Life

English Food & Drink

English Education--K12

sensory history

California

recipe

coffee cake

baking

distance learning

bay area

sensory history

California

recipe

home cooking

baker

baked goods

English San Francisco Bay Area

English K-12

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