The Covered Dish - Jam Dandy Coffeecake

I cannot remember the last time I shared my mamma’s coffeecake recipe in my column.
It’s Mother’s day weekend and I had this nagging desire to make mother’s favorite breakfast cake. I was home on Saturday, and I think making mom’s coffeecake was my way of holding on to those wonderful memories. It felt right, it was a part of my youth. I remember asking mother one time where she got this fun recipe and she said the radio.
Back then stay home working moms would listen to local cooking programs. That’s right, they didn’t even see the dish they were feverishly writing down.
Well; it was a keeper and something I would continue to make my entire life. The last time I made it for my dad, who passed last August, was the only time I ever had it flop!
I was trying to bake in mother’s home oven, and it was under-cooked and runny. We chuckled a great deal about that.
I also used the base of this recipe to write an overnite coffeecake, somewhere around 2019. How about I find that one, and run it next week. Choose any flavor of jam, most of the time back home it was grape jelly. Why, because the ‘fruit’-room’, in the basement, was full of grape jelly! When we kids didn’t care for the nuts over the top mom would kindly leave them off.
For company I like to serve this cake with scrambled eggs and 2-3 strips of bacon. I never got to the eggs and bacon today!!!
I’ve had the entire day at home by myself, and I’ve enjoyed it. I filled one planter with flowers, did laundry, made about 3 dishes, and prepared ingredients for a traveling mother’s day meal. A great amount of time was spent chopping peppers, onions, pickles, cheese, celery. I whipped up an overly large bowl of macaroni salad, home style. Then I jumped into making 24 -30 salmon patties to freeze. Long day, but a good day. My funny for the day was how I didn’t wear gloves while chopping and all my nails turned pink!
Then I cut myself on a brand new cheese knife, making cleaning my pink nails rather ‘stingy’!
My traveling Mother’s day meal is round steak with mushrooms and onions, green beans and little red potatoes, strawberry salad, biscuits and strawberry dessert. Sounds pretty good if I must say. Everything will be ready except for the biscuits which will take about 20 minutes after we arrive. Coffee and table decor are even traveling on this meal.
Remember; one of the best ways to lift up our parents, after they are gone, is to continue honoring them. Hope your week is a good one. Enjoy, The Covered Dish.

Jam Dandy Coffeecake
1 1⁄2 cups flour
1⁄4 cup sugar
2 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
1⁄4 cup melted butter
3⁄4 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
Topping
2/3 cup of jam, your flavor choice
1⁄4 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 cup chopped pecans or English walnuts
Mix 3 dry ingredients together, then make a well in the center and add the melted butter, egg and milk. Spray an 8 x 8 baking dish. Bring all the ingredients together with about 50 strokes. Pour into the prepared baking dish. Put about 9 good blobs of jam across the top, followed by the sprinkled brown sugar and nutmeats. Typically I don’t really measure the topping ingredients. Actually; if you are careful you can drop all the jam on then use the spoon to push it down more into the dish. This way you don’t contaminate all the remaining jam. Today I could have added a bit of cherry flavoring to the batter because Ervin came home asking me what the flavor was! You also could use chopped almonds with the cherry jam. Get creative and think outside the box. Bake at 350 degrees for 20- 25 minutes.