Heath Bar Coffee Cake 4/325

The Relation

Grand Pat, Cousin Elaine & Me

Patricia Gassmann, known to her grandchildren as Grand Pat, is the baking queen. This is an admittedly biased opinion, speaking as one of those aforementioned grandchildren. If you had ever been to Grand Pat's house, you would know about the chest freezer full of untold sweet treasures. She stored all of her cookies in Quaker Oat containers (#ReduceReuseRecycle). She was married to Henry Gassmann (Gertrude's 7th oldest child).

The Process

I continue to make these wild assumptions that all ingredients will be listed prior to the start of the instructions... but alas, that has not been the case. Please note that more than half of the ingredients are hidden in the instructions after the list of ingredients concludes.

Brickle Topping Mixture

What in the world is brickle?? I can honestly say I have never heard of brickle in my life. After a quick google search, I found that it is broken up toffee-esque candy used in baking. FYI, they do not carry brickle at the local grocery store. So I was left trying to figure out how to procure brickle.

Instead of actually searching for a specialty bake-shop that might carry brickle, I said: "hmmm Heath bars seem pretty close..." Despite Grand Pat actually calling for Heath bars by name earlier in the recipe, this seemed like the best (easiest) route. NOTE: I later inquired with my Aunt Genie about brickle and she assured me that, yes, Heath bar and brickle are interchangeable. Why Grand Pat felt the need to complicate things, who can say?

Not a 14" x 10" pan

I recommend pre-chopping the Heath bars into smaller pieces before tossing them into the blender. I only broke them up into fourths and ended up having to fish out some of the larger pieces from the batter to chop them up more. Very messy and overall a tragedy of inefficiency.

Right out of the oven, I used the tried and true plastic knife cutting method to get clean squares. Even though I had thoroughly greased the pan, I had the worst time getting them out of the pan. Actually, re-reading the recipe now, I definitely didn't grease and flour the pan... so maybe this is my bad. It still doesn't excuse the fact that Grand Pat calls for a baking pan exactly one inch longer on each side than every standard baking pan I have ever seen. Who owns a 14" x 10" pan??? Honestly.

The Feedback

Even though the entire bottom layer of cake was stuck to the pan, this dessert was amazing. My very pregnant boss could not stop raving about and helped me polish off four pieces during one of our meetings. Super moist and just overall, delicious.

The Recipe

HEATH BAR COFFEE CAKE             CC90
Pat Gassmann

1 stick butter
2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar

Blend the above ingredients. Reserve ½ cup of mixture. Add 1-cup buttermilk, 1 tsp soda, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla, and ½ cup broken Heath Bar. Blend well. Pour into greased and floured 10 x 14 x 2 cake pan. Mix ⅓ cup brickle, ¼ cup pecans and the ½ cup of reserved mixture. Sprinkle over top of batter. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes.