Moravian Sugar Cake

Soon after beginning my research for this recipe, an email with the subject line “Moravian Sugar Cake” appeared in my inbox. I opened the message from my friend Nan to find a scanned handwritten recipe for Moravian sugar cake from an acquaintance who happened to be a member of the Lititz Moravian Church in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Vague instructions—“pat lightly,” “hole it,” and “put more butter”—were scrawled across a sheet of ruled notebook paper. “This is the old stand-by when the congregation bakes sugar cakes to sell,” Nan wrote.

Drenched in butter and topped with cinnamon sugar, the cake, which is made from an enriched yeasted dough, is often described in cookbooks as a "yeast-raised coffee cake," and though it has a cinnamon sugar topping that’s reminiscent of coffee cake, it’s slightly chewier, with a dimpled pattern that brings focaccia to mind. The sweet is a staple at church fundraisers in Pennsylvania, with many bakers relying on decades-old recipes like the one I received. Though Moravian sugar cakes are especially popular at Christmastime, churches and bakeries in Pennsylvania and North Carolina make and sell the cakes year-round.

A Brief History of Moravian Sugar Cake

In a 2019 edition of The Morning Call, Paul Peucker, a historian and archivist for the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, tells journalist Jennifer Sheehan that Moravian sugar cake recipes have been around for at least 100 years—and likely even longer than that. Though no one knows for sure, it’s possible the cake arrived with Moravians in the mid-1700s, when they made their way from Moravia and Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) to America. They settled in Bethlehem, Lititz, Hope, and Nazareth in Pennsylvania, as well as Bethabara in North Carolina, an area around present-day Winston-Salem where many Moravians still reside today.

The sugar cake is a part of many Moravian celebrations, including “schmaus,” a meal that takes place after Moravians decorate their church for Christmas. The cake is also a mainstay at love feasts, Moravian church services with songs and devotion that are accompanied by baked goods, coffee, and chocolate milk.

According to a popular local folktale, Moravian men once scrutinized the thumbs of potential partners before they proposed: Bigger thumbs meant sugar cakes with deeper dimples, allowing for more butter and sugar to soak into the pastry, making it even more delicious. I promise, however, that it’s possible to make an excellent Moravian sugar cake regardless of the size of your thumbs. Here’s how.

How to Make Moravian Sugar Cake

Mashed potatoes are essential. Sugar cake doughs typically include flour, granulated sugar, yeast, eggs, and—perhaps in a surprising twist—mashed potatoes. Though it’s unclear why potatoes were originally included, Sheehan notes it’s possible that potatoes, which contain plenty of starch and sugar, were used to “boost the growth of yeast,” helping the dough rise faster. The potato also adds moisture to the dough, and its starchiness gives the cake its soft, slightly chewy texture.

A few recipes call for from-scratch mashed potatoes, but today, most bakers reach for instant mashed potatoes. "Although my mother used mashed potatoes and potato water [the water drained and reserved after boiling fresh potatoes], I use instant mashed potatoes," says Pennsylvanian Pat Dimmick in Betty Groff's Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook. "I am convinced that if earlier Moravians had instant potatoes, they'd have used them, too!"

Though my recipe below calls for boiling and mashing a potato, instant mashed potatoes are a great substitute if you want to save yourself the time and effort. And if you have leftover mashed potatoes? Feel free to incorporate them into the dough. Just be sure to avoid excessively seasoned potatoes, otherwise you may end up with garlicky Moravian sugar cake.

Use a stand mixer. The most important thing to remember about this recipe is that you are not making bread. This dough will not form a firm, elastic ball, pull away from the sides of the bowl, or pass a windowpane test. Instead, the dough will resemble a soft, stretchy cake batter that remains tacky after mixing, and will stick to the mixer hook. Resist the urge to add extra flour or you’ll find yourself with actual bread instead of cake.

Because the dough is so sticky, it’s easiest to prepare this dough in a stand mixer. If you don’t have a mixer, though, you can use a bench scraper to mix the dough and pull it up the sides of the bowl, an action that serves as a makeshift mixer, moving in a way that allows some gluten development without the mess of kneading the super-sticky dough by hand. Just follow my instructions in the notes below. 

Proof the dough—and keep an eye on it. As the dough proofs, the yeast consumes the starches and sugars, releasing carbon dioxide that then helps it further rise in the oven. Keep an eye on it, though, as over-proofing (which happens when the dough has fermented for too long) can result in your cake failing to rise—or briefly rising and then collapsing—when you bake it. To check if your dough is ready, wet your finger slightly and press it into the dough. It should leave an indentation and spring back slowly. If it springs back immediately, give it a few more minutes and then test it again.

Create dimples with your fingers. To create the cake’s signature dimples, I dip my fingers in melted butter, then gently press them into the dough. You don’t want to press all the way down—just deep enough to create little pockets for the butter and sugar topping. (As the cake bakes, the smell of cinnamon sugar will permeate your home, which is reason enough to make this.)

Drench the cake in butter. The most important ingredient after potatoes? Butter—lots and lots of it—in both the dough and topping. There are multiple approaches to incorporating the butter into the cake’s topping; some bakers apply it with a pastry brush, while others place half-inch cubes of cold butter in the dimples. Some cooks scatter freeform chunks and pieces of butter over the surface of the dough. 

Each of these methods yields a slightly different result; my preferred method is to drizzle melted butter over the unbaked dough. After filling the cake’s dimples with the cinnamon sugar mixture, I use a spouted measuring cup to slowly pour melted butter over the dough, including the cinnamon sugar–filled indentations. As the cake bakes, the butter and sugar come together to form satisfyingly crunchy tunnels in the dough.

How to Serve Moravian Sugar Cake

I sampled this cake at every possible temperature—at this point I'm pretty sure my body composition is roughly 75% butter—and think it tastes best while slightly warm. Enjoy it as breakfast, an afternoon snack, or dessert with coffee or tea.