Let them eat cake. In bed. That’s the Mother’s Day advice from Greer Gilchrist, co-owner and chef at both the Harbinger and Harken Cafe in Charleston, South Carolina. “When we were younger, my brothers and I would serve my mom breakfast in bed,” she says. “I cringe to think of what we made her, but she always ate it and acted like it was good. If I could go back, I would make her this coffee cake.” Beyond the Entenmann’s-like nostalgia, the secret to the Great Dane—as it’s called in the new Harbinger & Harken cookbook—is the avocado cream cheese filling. “I love putting produce in baked goods,” Gilchrist says. “Years ago, I had a boyfriend who loved avocados. So I made him everything I could with avocados (I avocado love-bombed him), including Avocado Pie.” That filling eventually became the creamy goodness in the center of this coffee cake—and the perfect way to love-bomb your own mama this Mother’s Day.
