[ohiofarmer]

My mother had this recipe for years but I have never found it in any cook book or online.
We call it Ice box Kuchen
The beard is made with yeast, flour, sugar and cinnamon and milk and lard and eggs.
The milk is heated till it scolds, forms a skin on the top. We put the lard, (shortening) in the hot milk to let it melt and helps cool the milk. After the milk cools and we have formed the dough we let it raise till it doubles in size. We also have put it in the frig over night.
After the dough has risen we roll it out till about 1/8 inch thick.
Melted butter covers the dough, then walnuts and cinnamon, rains and brown sugar are sprinkled over it all.
We roll the whole thing up like a jelly roll and form a wreath.
The bread is baked until golden brown.
Served warm with a cup of coffee it makes a great morning sweet bread for breakfast.
Anyone know the correct name and where it originated.
Tom

[KyleW]

Kuchen is German for cake. More specifically it has become know as coffee cake. What you describe is on of the hundreds, if not thousands, of variations. Try searching Google for "kuchen recipe".

Kyle

[BakeAholic]

I get coffee cake at the store. I have never made it but wow I know that pastries are my weakness and this sounds like fun to make!

[petalsandcoco]

Dear Ohiofarmer,

You had asked about the origin of Kutchen in your post, I did some research and found alot of different thoughts , one that seems to have some consistancy is this one , I do not know if this is what you are looking for but I will post the info.
If you have not found a recipe as of yet , let me know and I will post you mine.

Kuchen

Apfelkuchen descended from a long line of <A href="http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcakes.html#galette">sweet yeast breads. Food historians tell us ancient bakers in the middle east often used fruits and nuts in their breads, cakes, pastries, and cookies. This tradition was also practiced by the Ancient Romans, who are credited for spreading fruits (apples) and recipes throughout Europe.
Apfelkuchen in a German word that literally translates into "apple cake." There are dozens of variations on this simple theme ranging from apple chunks in basic dough to complicated compotes encased in batter cakes. While the title of this particular cake is German, the recipe is also known in other European countries. The central core is generally this: apfelkuchen is a simple recipe, one enjoyed by the 'average' person. Streusel topping is traditional.
Recipes for kuchen of all types were introduced to America by settlers of Northern European descent. Most notably are the Germans, who settled here in great numbers.
"Kuchen can usually be translated as cake (large or of biscuit size)...Although Kuchen often refers to something less fancy than a Torte, one of the most famous Kuchen is very fancy indeed. This is the Baumkuchen...Streuselkuchen (crumble cake) can be a plain rubbed-in cake..with cinnamon-flavoured crumble topping. A more elaborate version, called Apfelstreuselkuchen, has a layer of apple...pure between two layers of crumble."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 802-3)
"Kuchen. The German word for cake or pastry. Kuchen is a cake or pastry made with a sweetened yeast-risen dough that is either topped with a mixture of sugar and spices or nuts or filled with fruit or cheese before baking. Kuchen is the classic coffee cake and is served for both breakfast and dessert."
---The International Dictionary of Desserts, Pastries, and Confections, Carole Bloom [Hearst:New York] 1995 (p.167) "Kuchen, any of several varieties of coffee cake, were the pride of every nineteenth-century immigrant German baker, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Each cook or housewife had a yeast-based "kuchen" dough, which she would shape into rectangular crusts and top with either fruit or cheese, or she would twist with cinnamon and nuts into a streusel or coffee cake, or roll up jelly-roll style in to Schenecken...By the end of the century, baking powder came into use and replaced yeast in many kuchen. Quick breads and cakes gradually replaced the slower yeast-raised doughs. In May 1906, the Ladies' Home Journal ran an article on kuchen by Lola D. Wangner. "There seems to be a steadily-growing fondness among us for the German coffee-cakes or kuchen...They are to be found on many of our breakfast-tables on Sunday morning. These cakes are peculiar to Germany, every part of the Fatherland having its own methods of making them, and there are more than one hundred recipes."
---Jewish Cooking in America, Joan Nathan [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1998 (p. 308)

Hope this helps.....