My dad always made a breakfast cake twice a year for breakfast before General Conference.
General Conference is a special deal in my parent's home while I was growing up; and to have something extra special to look forward to, Saturday morning we would awaken to the aroma of sweet cinnamon and know the moist cake with crumbly cinnamon topping was awaiting to be devoured downstairs.
After it properly cooled of course.
My dad always made us wait at least a half hour after he pulled it from the oven because, he insisted, cutting into it while still too hot, would spell disaster.
With enough begging we might convince him to make if over long weekends or for another speical occasion; but, generally breakfast cake was a bi-annual treat.
So, of course, when we started moving out we all insisted it be added to a family recipe book we could take with us.
I remember my first General Conference away from home and the anticipation of having an entire breakfast cake just for my sister and me as I prepared the treat. I remember the nostalgic aroma as it baked. I remember the slight let down as I pulled a cake, with no crumbly topping to speak of, out of the oven.
The super fluffy, crumbly-topped cake was instead a slightly dense, brown sugar and cinnamon marbled cake.
I couldn't figure out what went wrong. Did I prepare the topping wrong? (How do you get softened butter to turn into a crumbly topping anyway; even if mixed in a food processor... which I didn't have.) Was it the pan? (Our family had a beaten aluminum-type pan that we kept solely for its breakfast cake making abilities.) Was it the climate or altitude? (I had moved from soggy, sea-level Seattle to arid Rocky Mountain Utah.)Was it comeuppance for never (that I recall) offering to help prepare the treat while my father slaved over the KitchenAid mixer? (We have been reading a lot of The Little Red Hen around here, it is Zoe's confidence.)
During subsequent tries, I fixed what factors I could but it was always a slightly heavy, dense, marbled-more-than-topped breakfast cake. That didn't stop me. I resigned myself to its new identity and continued the General Conference weekend tradition within my own growing family.
Until this month when we moved to Missouri.
Yesterday, for General Conference, I again made the breakfast cake. Out of the oven came what I remembered from my childhood all those years ago: a light and fluffy cake topped with a sweet cinnamon crumbly topping. I probably ate half the pan myself.
