Community Cookbook: Coffee Cake, by Ruby Steffens from Farrar, Mo.

Ruby Steffens wears her mother's apron and poses with a blackberry coffee cake. She says making coffee cake is a "trial and error" process.
Photo by Jasmine Jones

Recipes tell the stories of communities and the people who shape them. Each recipe is more than a list of ingredients and steps; it is a written legacy of the individual who created the dish, their family and history. This monthly series highlights one of these legacies and gives readers the chance to create the recipe themselves.

The eastern part of Perry County is known for its rolling hills, family farms, Lutheran churches and German heritage. This rural region that encompasses Altenburg, Mo., north to Crosstown, Mo., is also known for its coffee cakes, a sweet yeast bread commonly topped with fruit, peanut butter icing or cheese.

Long-time Farrar, Mo., resident Ruby Steffens says as long as she can remember, Eastern Perry County natives have made coffee cake. She says it is a tradition in the area, especially among women in Lutheran churches and those with German heritage. Although the dessert is popular, it isn’t necessarily easy to make.

“You cannot expect perfection the first time [when making coffee cake]. It takes practice,” Steffens says.

Steffens says she learned to make coffee cake by watching her mother bake it growing up and by using a recipe she found in Salem Lutheran Church’s 1992 cookbook. She says it took her “a lot of mess-ups” before she got the recipe right.

Steffens spent her early childhood years in the Boise Brule township in Perry County, Mo., which she refers to as “the bottoms.” A bout of bad flooding forced her family to move in with their grandparents for some time, before relocating to a farm near Farrar when Steffens was in the second grade.

“I call it moving to the hills,” Steffens jokes. “Everything out there [in Boise Brule] was flat and flooded easy.”

Farrar, pronounced by residents as “far,” is a small community with a population of 65, according to the last U.S. Census they were included in from 2000. The community, originally named Salem, Mo., was centered around Salem Lutheran Church, founded in 1859. When residents discovered another Salem, Mo., existed, Steffens says the postmaster named the township after himself.

“The postmaster’s name was Farrar, so he said we’ll temporarily call [the township] Farrar. … Well, it never got changed again. It was permanent,” Steffens says.

Steffens says she likes how “close-knit” Farrar is, and how everyone “more or less talks to each other.”

As a child, Steffens attended Salem Lutheran School and helped her father on their farm where they grew corn, oats and barley, and raised cattle, pigs and chickens. One of Steffens’ farm duties was to milk two cows “every morning and night.”

“When I was in high school, I had to milk two cows every morning, and if I didn’t get up in time, so be it. [If] I missed the bus, that was it,” Steffens says. “I had to milk the cows regardless, and if I didn’t get up in the morning, why, the cows still had to be milked.”

Steffens graduated from Perryville High School in 1957, then worked in St. Louis for a couple of years before moving back to Farrar in 1959. She then moved into a historic house, built between 1900 and 1905, with her husband, Cletus. The couple still lives in the house, but when they first moved in, Steffens says there were no “modern amenities” such as running water or a furnace.

Steffens has been a member of Salem Lutheran Church since the second grade. At church, she is part of Ladies’ Aid, a group of women who quilt every Thursday. She is also part of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League (LWML), a group that raises money for global missions. At LWML bake sales, Steffens says she usually makes coffee cakes, and last year, she baked 30 coffee cakes over two days. Between baking, quilting and babysitting her eight great-grandkids (with two on the way), Steffens stays busy.

On coffee cake bake days, Steffens makes her first batch of dough early in the morning. The dough rises for approximately two hours, then she splits it into pans and waits for the dough to rise again before baking the cakes. When she’s waiting for one batch of dough to rise, she starts making the next batch. Since the process is time-intensive, Steffens says “coffee cake days” are also “ham sandwich days,” meaning she and Cletus eat something simple like a ham sandwich for lunch or dinner.

Steffens makes coffee cake fairly regularly despite the work involved. Her favorite coffee cake flavors are blackberry with homemade crumbs or cheese. If she has coffee cake made, she’ll give them to her grandchildren as a “repayment” for all of the ways they’ve helped her out throughout the years.

Foundation Sweet Dough

Blackberry coffee cake made by Ruby Steffens sits on a plate in her kitchen in Farrar, Mo. Steffens found the dough recipe in Salem Lutheran Church's 1992 cookbook and created her own recipe for the crumbs on top.
Photo by Jasmine Jones

from “Recipes to Remember from Salem-Zion PTL,” 1992

2 packages dry yeast (Steffens uses 1¾ tablespoons)

½ cup warm water

1 tsp. sugar

2 cups lukewarm milk

¾ cup sugar

2½ tsp salt

¾ cup canola oil

1 large egg, beaten

About 7 cups flour

(Steffens adds vanilla to taste)

Dissolve yeast, warm water and sugar. Stir slightly. Set aside to rise. Combine warm milk, sugar, salt and oil. Add beaten egg and yeast. Add flour, 2 cups at a time, stirring to remove lumps. When dough thickens, use hands to knead dough for the last cup of flour. Continue kneading until no longer sticky and it forms a ball. Dough should not be heavy or stiff because of too much flour. Oil top of dough lightly. Let stand about two hours in warm place. After two hours, or when dough is double in bulk (it’s okay if dough is still sticky), sprinkle flour lightly on surface and knead dough until no longer sticky and it springs back like elastic. Makes two 11x17 inch coffee cakes or one 11x17 inch and two 9x13 inch pans. Roll out to the size of greased pan. Let rise for about ½ to ¾ hour.

Note (from Ruby Steffens):

After the dough rises the second time, spread on fruit, sprinkle crumbs or add cheese topping (cream cheese and cottage cheese mixture). For fruit toppings, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown on the bottom. For cheese toppings, preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for a little over an hour.

Coffee cake crumbs

Recipe by Ruby Steffens

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

Apple pie spice (to taste)

Vanilla (to taste)

Let butter soften at room temperature. Add ingredients to a bowl. Use a pastry blender or beater tool to combine ingredients into a crumbly mixture. Use as a topping over fruit on coffee cake. Be sure to add crumbs before baking the coffee cake.

See Ruby make this recipe at The Best Years Facebook page.