Grandma Gargiulo's Coffee Cake — A Wednesday Morning Love Letter.

Some recipes are just recipes. And then there are the ones that carry people with them.

Grandma Gargiulo's Coffee Cake is the latter.

My grandmother was Irish — and she married a wonderfully charming Italian gentleman named Joseph Aloysius Gargiulo (seriously Italiano). She became a fantastico Italian cook and baker, spending hours making her authentic northern Italian tomato sauce in their New York home — a sauce my grandfather raved about endlessly. She was also a practical woman. If she could find a good shortcut that delivered the same delicious result, she took it without apology. For this coffee cake, that shortcut was a yellow box cake mix — consistently moist and perfectly tender every single time. Her streusel though? Always homemade. Always from scratch.

At my former bakeshop, Frosting, I developed my own from-scratch version worthy of her legacy. Consistency was everything — King Arthur flours, Domino sugars, Rumford baking powder, Morton salt, and McCormick's vanilla, butter and nut extract — now called Cake Batter extract — gave this coffee cake its warm distinctive flavor our regulars came back for every single Wednesday morning. Andddddd a high-fat European butter makes all the difference in both the cake and the streusel — worth every single bit.

Full recipe below. Always served with a Royal Tara Shamrocks teacup of cold skim milk. Obviously.

This one's for you, Grandma Gargiulo. 

smiles + SONshine,

— SeaChelleB

Grandma Gargiulo’s Coffee Cake w/Streusel Top

Preheat oven: 300 degrees

Yield: 15 square pieces of coffee cake (approximately 60 ounces)

Bake: 42 minutes*

Cake

Cake flour	7.9	ounces
All-purpose flour	6.25	ounces
Sugar	14	ounces
Baking powder	1	Tablespoon
Salt	0.75	teaspoon
Butter	8	ounces
Eggs	4	large
Whole milk	1	cup
Vanilla, butter, nut extract	2	teaspoons

Combine flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix on low speed until combined. Add butter until just coated with flour mixture. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, milk and extract. Add wet to dry ingredients. Beat well.  

Spray a rectangle sheet pan. Add batter. Bake at 300 for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven. Add streusel. *Bake for another 30 minutes. Once cooled, cover completely with a glorious layer of confectioners' sugar.  And....enjoy!

Streusel

All-purpose flour	20	ounces
Sugar	7	ounces
Cinnamon	1	Tablespoon
Butter	12	ounces

Melt butter and pour over dry ingredients.  Use fingers to form crumbs. 

Grandma Gargiulo's Coffee Cake with streusel and confectioners sugar — served on a pedestal plate with cold skim milk poured from a Royal Tara Shamrocks Irish teapot. A Wednesday morning staple at Frosting Bakeshop, now made from scratch at home for my broskis and me, of course.