It’s Easter, and thought I’d share a religious experience of sorts with the foodie crowd.  Forgive the irreverence, but my personal epiphany was around something warm, yeasty and buttery with the intoxicating aroma of cinnamon.  I’m talking about Moravian Sugar Cake.  A couple of bites of this and you’ll have a life altering experience that will invoke deep, gluttonous thoughts.  I was bowled over by this regional treat several years ago when visiting some friends in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  I had joined the couple and some extended family of theirs for social festivities, and I kept hearing the phrase lobbied over my head:

“Did you take her to Dewey’s yet”?” … “You gotta take her to Dewey’s.”

Hmmmm, sounded suspiciously like a “wings ‘n rings” beer joint for the local Bubbas.  Politely, I asked about Dewey’s.  One of those in the know said that Dewey’s was a bakery that had the BEST cake ever.  That when you went, you had to buy several cakes, since they didn’t last too long.  Must be good cake I thought, considering this fellow kept talking about it.  OK, consider me hooked.  After a day or two more, complete with wining, dining, shopping and yakking — someone else asked my friend:  “Did you take her to Dewey’s yet?”  My curiosity was getting hard to manage; I didn’t know if I would last much longer.

The next day arrived, and the great field trip to Dewey’s went down.  Dewey’s is a bakery with several locations, one of those being gingerly tucked into a sprawling suburban strip mall that commonly covers the South.  They have been around quite a few decades, since 1930.  At any rate, once you cruise through any of the retail doors, you’re greeted by that utterly intoxicating cinnamon aroma I mentioned above.  In fact, I was mesmerized — in a trance — as I walked the long bakery counter viewing the fresh goodies behind the glass.  The shop is one of those German-style bakeries, with plenty of honey buns and coffee cakes.  But it is most well known for it’s Moravian Sugar Cake (and Moravian Cookies too, but we’ll have to save those for another post).

For those of you Biscuiteers out there who are in suspense, let me describe this uber treat.  It’s the love child of a snickerdoodle cake and foccacia bread.  It’s a relatively flat, square yeast cake made super moist by the addition of potato to the dough.   It’s not poured into a bundt pan, but rather patted into a jelly roll pan. Once baked, the top is dimpled like one of those textured relief maps from your grade school days; the little canyons and gorges of it having been drizzled with butter, with a cascade of brown sugar and cinnamon.  Like bread, you want to tear off pieces of this confection as opposed to cutting it.  As you pull, you can feel the tenderness, the gentle elasticity.   And despite the moist, buttery crumb, the sugar cake is somewhat delicate — light in weight and taste.  Then once the sweet treat has been finally registered by your taste buds, “happy” signals are telegraphed to your brain … blissful satiation.  Hypnotized, your hand involuntarily moves back to pull off another piece chunk.

Suffice it to say, I bought three of those cakes from Dewey’s and hand carried them onto the plane for my flight back north.

The cakes freeze beautifully.  And, just as melty chocolate bars on a hot dashboard seem to taste better, you can heat the sugar cake in the microwave for 15 to 30 seconds – just enough to make it soft and squishy.  You don’t really need to adorn this cake by any other means, but I can vouch that it makes an excellent if not slightly different base to a peach short cake.  Now that I think about it, sauteed apples spooned over it would make a lovely autumn short cake too.

So what is the Moravian component to the sugar cake?  The Moravians are an historic group whose heritage is from that of Bohemia and Moravia, which is present day Czech Republic.  They converted to Christianity in the mid-ninth century under the influence of the Greek Orthodox church, but became disillusioned with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome later on down the road (as did a few other groups).  I’ll shorten the story a bit to say that there was a protest group that splintered off from the Catholic church, and needless to say all sorts of drama ensued:  reformation spirit brought persecution, declarations of heresy, death, exile.  Fast forward several centuries to the mid 1700’s when the Moravians made their big boat trip to America, setting up camp in Pennsylvania, as well as a frontier settlement in North Carolina.  That settlement is modern day Winston-Salem, with Old Salem being a restored town and testimonial to the Moravian immigrants that developed the early settlement.  And yes, the Moravian Church is still a large and vital organization to this day.  Culturally speaking, the Germanic or Eastern European influences still run strong when it comes to Moravian food and baking – as there are numerous bakeries around Winston-Salem serving up old world baked goods for ‘those in the know.’

If you’re ever in Winston-Salem, indulge in the Moravian Sugar Cake, be it from Dewey’s or elsewhere.  It’s so unique to the area, and a wonderful example of worldly influence that resulted in something rather iconic for a little Southern town. If you’ve had it before and want to try your hand at making it, it’s not rocket science, but in my opinion – hard to measure up to the bakery version.  The below recipe was published by Jean Anderson in her cookbook “A Love Affair with Southern Cooking.” Amazingly, I have never spotted a Moravian Sugar Cake recipe in any other regional cookbook prior to hers – which is a shame.  I’ve Googled and found a handful of home style recipes that are meant to make bulk quantities, but I wasn’t in the mood to try several of them out and compare against each other.  Ms. Anderson’s version was enough to give me a quick ‘fix,’ but not sure I’d attempt it again as it seemed to lack that something special I remembered from my original experience, in both texture and taste.  Perhaps Moravian Sugar Cake is best left to the professionals; all I need to do is click and pay!

Then again, should any reader out there have a recipe they feel is worthy of attention, do share!

“Moravian Sugar Cake”

Adapted from “A Love Affair with Southern Cooking” by Jean Anderson

Cake Ingredients

• 1¼-ounce package active dry yeast
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup very warm water (105º to 115º F)
• ¼ cup firmly packed mashed potatoes, at room temperature
• 1 Tbsp dry milk powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 2¼ to 2½ cups un-sifted all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar mixed with ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Generously spritz a 15 x 10 x 1 inch jelly roll pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.  By hand, combine the yeast, ½ tsp of the sugar, and ¼ cup of the warm water in a large electric mixer bowl and let stand for 5 minutes or until the yeast activates and the mixture froths.  Add the remaining sugar and the remaining water, the potatoes, dry milk, salt and ½ cup of the flour.  Beat at low speed just long enough to combine, raise the mixer to high, and beat for about 2 minutes or until satiny.  With the mixer at low speed, add 1½ cups of the remaining flour, ½ cup at a time and continue beating after each addition to incorporate.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for about 2 minutes, working in the remaining ¼ to ½ cup flour until you have a soft, workable dough.  With well-buttered hands, pat the dough over the bottom of the jelly roll pan, stretching and pushing to the edge and into the corners.  Brush the dough with 1 Tbsp of the remaining melted butter, then set the uncovered pan in a warm, draft-free spot for about 30 minutes or until doubled in bulk.  Toward the end of rising, preheat the oven to 375º F.  When the dough is fully risen, poke deep holes all over the surface with your fingers, scatter the brown sugar mixture evenly over all, then drizzle with the remaining butter.  Again set uncovered in a warm, draft-free spot, this time for 10-15 minutes or until the dough has risen as high as the rim of the pan.

Bake the sugar cake on the middle over shelf for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned and springy-firm to the touch.  Remove from the oven, cool in the upright pan on a wire rack for about 20 minutes, then cut into large squares and serve.

PERSONAL NOTES:  With the use of mashed potatoes, make sure to plan ahead (I only needed 1 medium potato).  I opted to bake mine versus boiling since I wasn’t sure that I should introduce extra liquid into the baking equation.  In hindsight, I could have steamed it.  If I did it again, I’d run it through the food processor for a smooth texture versus just mashing with a fork like I did.  Other than that, just note the addition of dry milk powder which I had to buy special for this recipe.  My last bit of advice, is that you might want to (a) lower the temp a tad or (b) purposefully under bake the cake  — depending upon your particular oven.  I baked for exactly 18 minutes and felt my product came out a touch too crunchy (like a bread when I would have preferred it more soft and ‘cakey’).

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