As the mornings grow chilly, it's time to slow down, enjoy the fall colors, and warm up. A delicious treat to try this season is a coffeecake. Here's a recipe that is almost sacred, given to me on a note card by a woman I called Aunt Annie. Aunt Annie wasn't a blood-relative, but missionary kids learned to call other missionary parents "aunt" and "uncle" because it was so much less formal than Mr. or Mrs. Most of the time, we knew these missionary aunts and uncles better than our own relatives. Our own relatives were in the U.S. and we saw them sporadically; the missionaries who worked near our parents in Japan, we saw often.
So this is a recipe given to me when I got engaged in Japan back in 1988. It came in a colorful recipe book with handwritten recipes from others who were working in Japan at the time. There are recipes from many kitchens. Over the years, I have gone to this cookbook and not only made the recipes, but have added other recipes to it, ones I've printed off the Internet, ones I've cut out of magazines, ones from cookie exchanges. My Japan Recipe Book is fat now. The Streusel-Filled Coffeecake from Aunt Annie Brady remains one of the originals and one of my favorites.
Aunt Annie's son Bill (who graduated from Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan the same year I did), says he mixes sour cream with the milk to make the coffeecake more moist. I have yet to try that, but it is an option.
Aunt Annie died last year. A number of those who contributed to the cookbook are also gone. The fond memories of knowing these missionaries and learning from them, live on. Their recipes are treasured remembrances.
The back of the recipe card holds Aunt Annie's suggestion about making a batch of streusel and also a tip about not using all the recipe calls for in one coffeecake. However, I use it all. Having a sweet tooth from early on, my feeling is that one can never have too much streusel.
Happy baking and eating!
