Moravian Sugar Cake

MAKES ONE 8-INCH ROUND OR SQUARE CAKE

With a yeast-risen, mashed-potato-fortified dough that looks like bread but comes together like a cake, this recipe is wacky, weird, wonderful, and pure comfort food. It’s also full of huge muscovado flavor, with little buttery tunnels of spicy, citrus-scented brown sugar sunken into the dimpled surface. The coffee cake of dreams, I’m telling you.

Use a handheld electric mixer to mash the potato right in the pan, and then again for the dough.

CAKE

1 small to medium russet potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces*

1½ cups (6¾ ounces/192 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled

2¼ teaspoons (1 packet/¼ ounce/7 grams) instant yeast

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

3 tablespoons (1½ ounces/43 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 tablespoons (1⅜ ounces/38 grams) evaporated cane juice

1½ teaspoons finely grated orange zest

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

SUGAR TOPPING

6 tablespoons (3 ounces/84 grams) firmly packed light or dark muscovado sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1½ teaspoons finely grated orange zest

Pinch of fine sea salt

1½ tablespoons (¾ ounce/21 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

*You’ll have more mashed potato than you need for the dough; I add a little butter and salt to the remainder and call it a baker’s treat. Having both the potato and potato liquid warm when they go into the dough will help the yeast do its thing.

1. Lightly grease an 8-inch round or square metal cake pan with butter or nonstick cooking spray.

2. Make the cake: Place the potato chunks in a small saucepan and add enough water to cover them by 2 inches. Place the pan over medium-high heat and boil until the potato is almost falling apart when pierced with the tip of a knife, about 10 minutes. Reserve ¼ cup (2 ounces/57 grams) of the cooking water. Drain the potato. Dump the potato back into the still-hot pot and shake the pan to dry the potato a bit.

3. Using a handheld electric mixer, mash the potato until smooth (you can press the potato through a ricer or a sieve after mashing it to be sure there are no lumps). Measure out ½ cup (3¾ ounces/106 grams) of mashed potato into a small bowl. Add the reserved cooking water to the bowl. Whisk until smooth.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, yeast, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

5. In a large bowl, combine the butter, evaporated cane juice, and orange zest. With the handheld mixer, beat the mixture on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and beat until smooth and aerated, about 1 minute more. Beat in the vanilla extract. Reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture and the potato liquid in 5 alternating additions, beginning and ending with the flour.

6. When the dough is smooth, lightly dust a work surface with all-purpose flour. Scrape out the dough onto the work surface. Flour your hands and knead the dough several times—it will still look a bit shaggy. Drop the dough into the prepared pan and press it into an even layer. Cover the pan with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rise until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

7. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350˚F.

8. Make the topping: In a small bowl, fork together the sugar, cinnamon, orange zest, and salt. Dip your index fingers in all-purpose flour and poke 12 to 15 holes all over the surface of the dough, about 1½ inches apart, burrowing all the way to the bottom of the pan. Swirl the tips of your fingers around once they’re in the dough, to encourage the holes to stretch a bit and stay open. Fill each hole with a few pinches of the sugar mixture (don’t pack it in; just drop it in lightly). Scatter the remaining sugar topping over the surface of the dough. Use a pastry brush to lightly dab and drizzle the melted butter evenly over the surface of the cake.

9. Bake the cake until it is puffed and golden, with a fragrance that fills the kitchen, about 30 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack before inverting the cake onto a platter and serving.