A Year of Blogging: July 19, 2011

July 19 is Raspberry Cake day. I can't think of a Raspberry Cake without thinking of the dessert my mom makes. We call it Raspberry Koucka (pronounced coo cah). It is a recipe handed down through the generations. I think it was handed down on Mom's side of the family, but everyone on Dad's side remembers their grandmother making it, so it's possible it was a recipe that came from Dad's side. More likely, there was a version on both sides. Given that most of my heritage is German, and the name of the cake and how it is spelled, I suspect it was originally known as a Kuchen, which is the German word for cake. According to Wikipedia, there are several types of Kuchen: a pie-like pastry with a thick 'cakey' crust and a sweet custard based filling; a rolled pastry with a long spiral of dough filled, rolled, baked, and sliced to serve; a coffee-cake like pastry with veins and pockets of cinnamon and sugar baked throughout; a cheese-cake like pastry with a yeast raised crust, filled with fruit, and a creamy custard; or a pie like pastry with a thick 'cakey' crust and an apple pie like filling often with sweet white icing on top. The Koucka my mom makes is more like the last one: it has a thick crust and a raspberry filling, with white icing. She has also substituted blueberries for the raspberries, and that works just as well. The Koucka is a dessert that all of us love. Mom made it all summer long, and because it doesn't keep well, we were always allowed to eat a piece of it for breakfast the next morning. We fought over the middle pieces, and got mad if someone else got the last piece because we knew we had to wait for the next one. Mom didn't make it every week- but at least once a month in the summer. Plus she made it for parties. She always froze raspberries and sometimes would make a koucka in the middle of winter to drive away those January blues. This year, I asked her to make it for my birthday cake. Here is the recipe. Mom wrote it down from memory, so that explains the inexact ingredients.

Raspberry Koucka 2 cups bisquick 3/4 cup heavy cream 8 oz tub sour cream 1/2 cup sugar 2 or 3 teaspoons cinnamon (to taste) 1 quart raspberries (fresh or frozen) Mix bisquick and heavy cream together. Dough should not be pourable like a pancake dough, nor the consistency of cake dough. But it should not be dry either. You might have to add more heavy cream. Grease or spray a 9 x 13" pan, press dough into bottom of pan and slightly up the sides. Mix Raspberries with sour cream, sugar and cinnamon. Pour over dough. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until crust is brown and center is set (like pumpkin pie) Mix frosting sugar, milk, and a dash of vanilla for a frosting, drizzle over cake. (put on as much as you like). Let cake cool before eating.

One note: this makes a LOT. If you are making this for just two people, you can split the recipe in half and bake it in a smaller pan (such as 8x8). This cake does not keep easily, after two days it starts to get soggy so you don't want to be left with tons of leftovers.