I came across a recipe for Cinnamon Flop Cake in one of our Antique Recipe Collections. The recipe was titled “Grams Cinnamon Flop”. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out the cursive letter at the beginning of Flop was in fact an “F”. Having unlearned cursive sometime in the last decade I had to enlist the help of Em to determine it was Flop and not Slop or Glop.
I was pretty excited finding this recipe. I had never heard of this thing called Cinnamon Flop before and I thought to myself, maybe this is the only recipe for this in existence and I just found it! Then I googled Cinnamon Flop and found about 500,000 results with recipes and that went out the window pretty fast. At least it will be new to the maniacs and myself!
The completed recipe exceeded my expectations in every way. I do not know why this wouldn’t be a common thing today. It uses always on hand ingredients and only a few simple steps. However the directions on the recipe card were not very clear on what to do with the ingredients. The cook time was way off for me but through cross checking other recipes I figured it out on the first try.
Into a stand mixer I put 1 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon softened butter. Then I started the mixer and added 4 teaspoons baking powder, 2 cups flour, 1 cup milk, and 1 egg. A couple minutes of mixing and the cake batter is done.
In a separate bowl I combined 3 tablespoons softened butter with 1 cup brown sugar and a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.
I poured the batter into an 8×8 greased baking pan and dotted the top with the brown sugar mixture. What I didn’t know at this point is the cinnamon sugar mixture will sink to the bottom to create a syrup like layer. When it is done you flop slices of cake upside down so the gooey cinnamon part is on top. That is where the Flop comes in!
The recipe states cook 350-400 degrees for 15 minutes. I split the difference and baked at 375 degrees but it took a little over 30 minutes for it to be done. I was watching it pretty closely after 15 minutes.
Unlike other cakes that you want to allow to cool, this one you want to eat warm so I only let it rest 5-10 minutes (not really sure how long- it felt like an eternity) before slicing and flopping!
It turned out great and who wouldn’t love a cinnamon roll like cake. I envision using this for countless brunches in the future. A great breakfast cake.
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 tablespoon butter softened
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 8×8 baking pan.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer combine sugar and 1 tablespoon butter.
- Then add baking powder, flour, milk, egg and mix until batter forms (about 2 minutes).
- In a separate bowl combine 3 tablespoons butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix well.
- Pour batter into 8×8 pan and dot top with brown sugar mixture.
- Bake 25-35 minutes until golden brown and set.
- Allow to cool a few minutes, then slice, flop cake slice upside down, and enjoy warm!