The Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake is a famous dessert created by an confectionery & soda fountain chain called Blum's. It's hard to find articles about Blum's that don't include comments from people sharing cherished memories. They mention not only the food, but the atmosphere. There was a pink and white color scheme, counter service and tables and what some describe as "an overall elegance". I can only imagine it had a very special kind of feel considering the many lasting impressions. As for food, it seems like they served plenty interesting items. However, Blum's was most known for their candy, ice cream and special desserts like the Coffee Crunch Cake.
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Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake
Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake was a lightly lemon flavored cake filled and topped with coffee flavored whipped cream. The crunch came from chunks of a crispy honeycomb type candy. It was invented by Ernest Weil, the operations manager at the time who wouldn't let a ruined candy go to waste. As the story goes, an employee made an overly chewy batch of candy and Mr. Weil put it to use by smashing it and putting it all over a cream covered layer cake. Mr. Weil went on to start his own pastry business and also wrote a book called Love To Bake which includes his famous recipes. I'd like to see his original version, but so far the most popular copycat is Flo Braker's Coffee Crunch Cake. Hers is a lemon sponge covered with vanilla flavored cream and a coffee crunch. It has much less coffee flavoring than some of its copycats, including this one. Mine is loaded with coffee mostly in the form of espresso powder. If you are sensitive to caffeine, you may want to eat it before noon.
Can of Pears in Yellow Cake Mix
My cake is different from Flo Braker's. With all due respect to those who have made the cakes as sponge or chiffon, I had a rowdy dog, a lot going on, and not enough patience to deal with measuring ingredients for a scratch sponge cake. Plus earlier in the day while walking that rowdy dog, I'd been thinking about an old Pillsbury Bake-Off trick of dumping pears into cake mix to make the award winning Chocolate Macadamia Torte. I'd never tried that, but if the canned pears worked with chocolate cake mix, why wouldn't they work with yellow cake mix? Mandarin oranges sure did. So I picked up some pears and yellow cake mix and started in on the cake portion of the cake component. The pears (almost) completely disappeared and we couldn't taste them. They, along with an extra egg and oil, made the boxed cake mix less sweet. So in my recipe, you won't follow the recipe on the box. You just mix the cake mix with a can of pears, 4 eggs and ¾ cup of oil.
Coffee Crunch Candy
Another reason I used cake mix was because this cake has a step where you have to make the candy. But don't worry because it's an easy candy that comes together in minutes and doesn't require constant stirring. To make the coffee crunch candy, you just put sugar, corn syrup, coffee, and a dash of espresso powder in a heavy 2 quart saucepan and boil until it hits 300F. Remove from heat, stir in some baking soda to puff it up, then pour onto a parchment lined tray to form a blob. The blob will sink, harden and turn into a crunchy candy that tastes okay by itself but is not as good as butter toffee. However, when you put it on the cream cake, its purpose is revealed! It softens but retains some crunch.
Here's another photo. This is actually a second batch I made without the espresso. Insead, I used hot water, a pinch of salt and the inside of half a vanilla bean.
Coffee Flavored Whipped Cream
The other Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake copycats contain different amounts of heavy whipping cream, sugar and coffee, so I just went with what I thought we'd like and used 2 cups of whipping cream, 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of espresso powder. I'll probably stick with those amounts in the future, and may throw in some vanilla. Some coffee flavored whipped cream recipes use powdered sugar. The whipped cream frosting with granulated sugar might not hold up as long as a powdered sugar version, but it was fine overnight in the refrigerator. I'll be moving what's left of the cake to the freezer anyway.
My last thoughts on this cake are that I can't wait to make it again! I am looking forward to trying it with the scratch sponge for sure. However, I'm also excited about making some other easy doctored cake mix cakes with a can of pears.
Recipe
Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake
Ingredients
- 1 box Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix
- 15 oz can of pears in juice or syrup
- 4 large eggs
- ¾ cup neutral flavor vegetable oil
Coffee Crunch
- 2 tablespoons strong brewed coffee
- ¼ teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
Coffee Flavored Whipped Cream Frosting
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoons instant espresso powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8x2 inch round cake pans.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, combine the cake mix, pears, eggs and oil. Beat on medium for 2 minutes or until smooth. Pears will mostly disappear, but you may have a few lumps here and there.
- Scrape batter into the cake pans, dividing evenly, and bake on center rack for about 28 minutes or until cakes spring back when touched and appear set.
- Let cakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then invert and let cool completely while you make the coffee crunch.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and set it next to the stove.
- Measure out the baking soda and have it ready to go.
- In a 2 quart saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and coffee. If using extra espresso powder, you can add it too. Stir off heat, then set over heat.
- Bring mixture to a boil. If your saucepan has a lid, cover it for about 1 minute after mixture starts to boil. Remove cover, insert a deep fry/candy thermometer and boil gently without stirring until mixture reaches 300 degrees F. Remove from the heat and quickly stir in the baking soda. Candy will puff up. Pour onto the parchment lined baking sheet, do not flatten, just let it form a blob. Let it sit and harden. This could take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. If you let it go to 300, it should harden pretty quickly.
- When the candy is cool and hard, break it up over the parchment lined tray so that you have big pieces and little scraps. You can do it by hand or you can put it in a bag and crush carefully, but don't pulverize it all because you want big chunks.
- When you have your cake and candy ready, make your coffee cream. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the cream, sugar and espresso powder until thick.
- Sprinkle some of the smaller bits of crunch mixture over the first layer of cake, then spread on a thick layer of the coffee cream. Add second layer and coat the whole cake. Press the pieces of crunch decoratively all over the cake and keep chilled until ready to serve.
Darlene says
Thanks, Anna! Your Pear Spiced Bundt Cake with Caramel Icing is the most delicious cake I've ever had. I look forward to trying this cake, also.
Anna says
Hi Darlene, I just dumped in a whole can of pear halves and juice. Since I was using a stand mixer with a paddle, I didn't do any chopping at all. If you are using a less powerful mixing appliance you may want to chop or break the pears up, but I just dumped in the whole can. Also, I think pears in syrup would work just as well as juice without making the cake too sweet.
Darlene says
Such an interesting story! I may have missed it, but do you drain the juice from the can of pears prior to adding them to the rest of the cake ingredients? Also, would you recommend sliced pears or pear halves (perhaps chop them before adding)?
Anna says
Thanks Sue! We really liked this one. I'm going to try the scratch version as well.
Sue says
That’s a lot of interesting information! Your cake looks fabulous!.