I'm wondering if the US "coffee cake" might be a calque of Kaffeekuchen, but I don't know the German culinary history there and whether some of the presence of similar cakes under "Kaffeekuchen" is back-importation of the USian variety...
I learned about your side of the pond's coffee-flavored coffee cake about a decade ago thanks to an Irish cookbook by someone with I think an American spouse.
And, what "currants" means here in the States is... difficult to pin down; since currant (and gooseberry! and particularly jostaberry! we don't do Ribes a lot) products are altogether rather scarce here, I am inclined to assume that naked "currant", particularly in baking, is in fact the (OG (see other comment)) dried grape, but currant jam/jelly(in the US, again, this is a jam like spread made of set juice), for instance, is ...probably meant to be redcurrant jam, even though blackcurrant jam does exist here. I have found freeze dried black currants for sale online here, and contemplating buying them due to a discontinued black currant cereal, but haven't done so yet.
However! One of my Kaffeekuchen search results pointed out that "streusel" would, of course, have a German pronunciation originally, and I am similarly a little verklempt about that, so. (I. did the same years ago about Euler. what can I say?)
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regna
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Date: 2025-05-07 05:08 pm (UTC)I learned about your side of the pond's coffee-flavored coffee cake about a decade ago thanks to an Irish cookbook by someone with I think an American spouse.
And, what "currants" means here in the States is... difficult to pin down; since currant (and gooseberry! and particularly jostaberry! we don't do Ribes a lot) products are altogether rather scarce here, I am inclined to assume that naked "currant", particularly in baking, is in fact the (OG (see other comment)) dried grape, but currant jam/jelly(in the US, again, this is a jam like spread made of set juice), for instance, is ...probably meant to be redcurrant jam, even though blackcurrant jam does exist here. I have found freeze dried black currants for sale online here, and contemplating buying them due to a discontinued black currant cereal, but haven't done so yet.
However! One of my Kaffeekuchen search results pointed out that "streusel" would, of course, have a German pronunciation originally, and I am similarly a little verklempt about that, so. (I. did the same years ago about Euler. what can I say?)