In the 1940s, Blum’s, the venerable San Francisco chain of pastry shops, created this crunchy-velvety coffee cake. Ernest Weil, a Blum’s operations manager, wanted to repurpose some of the shop’s candy that was too hard to chew. He hammered the candy into pieces. Then he covered a three-layer sponge cake with coffee-flavored whipped cream and decorated the cake with the shattered bits of candy. Blum’s famous Coffee Crunch Cake was born.
Recipe Servings: 10
Prep Time
20 minutes
+ 1 hour resting
+ 1 hour resting
Cook Time
10 minutes
Total Time
1 hour 30 minutes
Vegetarian
Vegan
Gluten Free
Dairy Free
Kosher
Halal
Ingredients
- 1 10-inch angel food cake
- 1½ cups sugar
- 4 Tbsp light corn syrup
- ½ cup espresso coffee, divided
- Butter or shortening, for pan
- 1 Tbsp baking soda, finely sifted
- 1 cup cream
Directions
- In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, gently boil sugar, corn syrup, and ¼ cup espresso. Increase the heat until it reaches 310°F on a candy thermometer.
- Meanwhile, use butter or shortening to grease a large baking tray.
- Remove candy from the heat and vigorously whisk in baking soda, which should immediately foam up. Whisk until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan.
- Pour candy onto the greased tray without spreading or stirring. Leave to cool at least 1 hour.
- Crush cooled candy into small pieces.
- Whip cream with remaining espresso.
- Frost angel food cake with coffee cream and cover with candy pieces.
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