From 1913:
The following recipe for German coffee cake should produce good results if the dough is well worked, allowed to rise the correct length of time, and baked in the right sort of oven – that is, an oven heated to the proper degree. I hope you may have success with it:
Cream a cup of sugar with a half cup of butter, add to these two cups of scalded milk, half a yeast cake dissolved in a cup of warm water, a half teaspoon of salt, and two well beaten eggs. Thicken with enough flour to make a batter that can be stirred with a spoon. Beat well, set to rise for about three hours, and when half its first bulk put in enough flour to make a dough you can roll out. Make it about an inch thick and put in long shallow pans, letting the loaves rise until light. Before putting the pans in the oven sprinkle the top of the cake with bits of butter the size of a hickory nut and with a generous allowance of sugar to which you have added a little cinnamon. Bake for about thirty minutes in a rather slow oven, keeping the top of the cake covered with brown paper until almost done.