Recipe

The Perfect Breakfast-in-Bed Treat for Mom

Name: The Great Dane
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 60 min
Yield: 16 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 ripe avocado, pitted and peeled; 16 oz. room temperature cream cheese; 2 ½ cups powdered sugar; 1 cup all-purpose flour; ¼ cup brown sugar; 1 tsp. ground cinnamon; ⅛ tsp. ground nutmeg; ½ cup canola oil; 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour; ¾ cup sugar; 1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. baking powder; 1 tsp. salt; 1 cup canola oil; ½ cup milk (any kind you like); 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar; 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

16 servings

Kick off her Mother’s Day right with a perfect square of homemade coffee cake—with a surprising filling

By Jenny Everett
Recipe by Greer Gilchrist

May 8, 2025

Photo: Helene Dujardin

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.

Ingredients

The Great Dane (Yield: 16 servings)
Avocado cream cheese
- 1 ripe avocado, pitted and peeled
- 16 oz. room temperature cream cheese
- 2 ½ cups powdered sugar
Crumble topping
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp. ground nutmeg
- ½ cup canola oil
Coffee Cake
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup canola oil
- ½ cup milk (any kind you like)
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Preparation

Make avocado cream cheese filling: Place avocado in a bowl and lightly mash using a fork. Add the cream cheese and, using a mixer, beat until smooth (there should be no big avocado chunks remaining). With the mixer running, slowly add the powdered sugar and mix until smooth and fully incorporated. Set aside.
Make crumble topping: In a bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. Add oil and stir just until the mixture is the consistency of wet sand. Set aside.
Make the coffee cake: Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (from flour to salt). Make a well in the center and add the liquid ingredients (from oil to vanilla). Stir or use an electric mixer to combine into a dough.
Divide the dough in half and shape into rough 9-by-9 squares. Press half of the dough evenly into a parchment-lined 9-by-9-inch baking dish. Top it with the avocado cream cheese and spread evenly. Top the cream cheese with the second half of the dough. Press it down as best you can; it doesn’t need to be perfect. (If you have time, you can place it in the fridge so the filling firms up before adding the second layer of dough.) Finally top it with the crumble topping. Bake for one hour. Let cool a bit, then slice into even squares.

Jenny Everett is a contributing editor at Garden & Gun, and has been writing the What’s in Season column since 2009. She has also served as an editor at Women’s Health, espnW, and Popular Science, among other publications. She lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, with her husband, David; children, Sam and Rosie; and a small petting zoo including a labrador retriever, two guinea pigs, a tortoise, and a fish.