Talk:Coffee cake

This article was selected as the article for improvement on 2 December 2019 for a period of one week.

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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Coffee cake is what?[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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[edit]

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)[reply]

General Comments[edit]

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)[reply]

Scandinavian (Swedish) origin?[edit]

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)[reply]

Globalisation issue[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]