Talk:Coffee cake (American)

Coffee cake is what?

Ok sorry BBC coffee cake while it may be a cake flavored with coffee, is not actually what the definition is. Coffee cake is dense, sweet, cake usually with a streusel top flavored with spices like cinnamon, or nutmeg. Where did cake flavored with instant coffee come from? This "article" is incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.240.231.252 (talk) 19:11, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, at the very least, this article needs to make the clarification that a coffee flavored (or flavoured) cake is something no one in the dominant native English speaking country in the world would recognize as a coffee cake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.48.162 (talk) 14:21, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

This is factually incorrect. Darrylsnow (talk) 23:58, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This is clearly incorrect. The only English speaking countries in the world where "coffee cake" would be inferred to mean a cake that does not contain coffee is the USA and Canada.

Cake for eating with coffee/Kaffekuchen

In the US coffee cake may refer to a cake eaten with coffee, but this is not the case in most of the world. Also, the claim that this usage comes from German via Kaffeekuchen is strange, as in Germany Kaffeekuchen is a cake made from coffee (i.e a coffee cake). Germany does have the idea of "Kaffee und Kuchen", which refers to the regular cultural eating of cakes with Koffee, and seems more similar to the US term, but this has nothing to do with Kaffeekuchen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8071:6A7:CA00:E58E:BC00:36AC:90D4 (talk) 15:47, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

General Comments

The lead section is fairly incoherent and jumps around between details of specific types of coffee cake; it seems to have been written by multiple people but never cleaned up. Some of this information could go into subsections, which themselves could use some bolstering. More specifically, a section about the history of coffee cake would be a good addition. The sources don't seem to be reliable because they only consist of recipes from random individuals. Other more general articles about coffee cake would be better suited as sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MCDB40Student81 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Scandinavian (Swedish) origin?

In older Swedish recipe books there is often a kind of cake called "kaffekaka". They are usually cardamom and/or cinnamon flavoured, but never contain coffee. Presumably they are rather named for being eaten in combination with coffee, as "fika". Unfortunately I can't think of any good/reliable source for this (a side from grandma's recipe collection). 98.128.229.197 (talk) 18:50, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Globalisation issue

This article is pretty much exclusively written from an Americocentric point of view. Coffee cakes exist in other countries, where they are typically flavoured with coffee. Examples include UK and Ireland, France, Italy. I'd suggest either working those into the prose of this article somehow, or renaming this article to American coffee cake. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:54, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey, @Sideswipe9th! I'd argue globalization isn't an issue; it's an American dish, and in other countries the term is being used to mean something profoundly different. Just because two dishes have the same name doesn't mean they're the same dish and should be covered in the same article. Pigs in blankets and Pigs in a blanket were trying to do that, which is why I split the original article.

The fact we can find recipes for coffee-flavored cakes from other countries also doesn't mean coffee-flavored cakes are notable. Not saying they aren't, but recipes don't prove it. If we could find support for the term "coffee cake" meaning coffee-flavored cake being a notable subject, we could move this to Coffee cake (United States) and use a dab, maybe? If we can't find enough support for that, we could maybe add a 'Dishes with similar names' here? Valereee (talk) 15:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Interestingly, the fr.wiki article is primarily about the American coffee cake. It was probably just copied over, but still. There are no sources there for the coffee-flavored layer cake except recipes, if I'm reading it right. Which is not easy when I'm toggling back and forth with languages. Ditto the it.wiki article. I haven't checked all ten, but they either seem to just have copied/translated this one, or they've added (sourced to a recipe) 'sponge cake infused with coffee, or in the US, [etc.)'. A google search in English for coffee cake comes up with thousands of recipes in English. I am just not seeing coffee-flavored cakes as being notable, and the dish that is notable does seem to be this US style. Maybe Canada too. Valereee (talk) 16:46, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that the results you're seeing are based on your location and whatever data the search engine knows about you. Try using a VPN and a fresh browser. When I search for "coffee cake" the results I get are mostly cakes flavored with coffee – coffee-flavored sponge and/or icing. When I search in other languages and locales, e.g. 咖啡蛋糕 , Bolo de Café, कॉफी केक, etc. I get the same. Personally I'd never heard of a coffee cake that doesn't contain coffee until I read this article, but then I'm in the other ~96% of the population.

Definitely agree with @Sideswipe9th that the article's recent revisions have made it too American and it should be reverted to describe "Coffee Cake" as something that can either be flavored with or eaten with coffee, and then have sections describing the different variations. The non-English versions of this page that were copied from a previous currently seem to be more accurate. Darrylsnow (talk) 23:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the solution is to move this to American coffee cake, as Sideswipeth suggested, and create a new article about coffee-flavored cake, whichever title that should be under. Valereee (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I've done that. Valereee (talk) 13:18, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I guess the title of that new article should be "Coffee Cake", given that's what most people use to refer to "coffee-flavored cake"? The current title of this article is strange as it implies that coffee cake (i.e. coffee-flavored cake) is American. Perhaps "American Coffee Cake" would be more appropriate to refer to cakes that Americans eat with coffee? Darrylsnow (talk) 10:33, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I put a couple sentences on coffee cake to start off. jengod (talk) 11:38, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jengod, I'm not sure that's right. That implies coffee cake is primarily coffee-flavored cake, and we don't even have any sources indicating coffee-flavored cake is a notable subject. We could turn it into a dab, maybe? Or List of coffee-flavored cakes? Valereee (talk) 11:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I was going for a dab and got off track! I leave it in your hands or I'll fix it in the morning. I don't even know why I'm awake LOL jengod (talk) 11:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I've done that, thanks! Good solution. Valereee (talk) 12:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Coffee cake is primarily a coffee-flavored cake for many people and we have plenty of sources – google the term "coffee cake" from any other country, and look up pre-1900 American coffee cake recipes (e.g. https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcakes.html#coffeecake, https://d.lib.msu.edu/fa/10#page/56/mode/2up (page 49)). It's just not primarily a coffee-flavored cake to modern-day Americans. Anyway, it's good that the term is now disambiguated – we just need to take the original content from a previous version of this page that describes coffee cake and put it on the coffee cake page. Darrylsnow (talk) 14:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Darrylsnow, I'm not sure any of the sources from the original content discuss coffee-flavored cake. Except for a couple of recipes for coffee and walnut cake, they all seem to be about the American coffeecake?

You need sources discussing coffee-flavored cakes that are called coffee cakes at length -- at least three instances of significant coverage in reliable sources -- and they need to be about coffee-flavored cakes in general, as we already have Coffee and walnut cake, which as far as I have been able to find is the only coffee-flavored cake that can be proven notable via sources in English. There may be sources in other languages supporting a claim to notability of other coffee-flavored cakes, and that's fine, but in order to turn Coffee cake into an article about coffee-flavored cakes, we need those three sources discussing the subject as a general topic: coffee-flavored cakes that are called coffee cakes. Valereee (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

"American coffee cake" seems like an unlikely search term. Whichever cake people are searching for, they're likely going to type in Coffee cake or Coffeecake. That'll get them to a drop down to Coffee cake (American), and if Coffee cake (that is, the coffee-flavored cake) is created, we can create a dab at Coffee cake. Valereee (talk) 11:40, 9 July 2024 (UTC)