I bake rarely. The blueberry muffins, the occasional coffee cake, and maybe a cookie or two. Beyond that, nada. But it's a lot easier to write about the pastry products because it's the one aspect of cooking that I actually follow a recipe. Most of my cooking is the dinner-type. And most of that is me winging it.
Coffee cake is not the first thing on one's mind when the temperature is in the low 100s, but take your mind forward to autumn. The night was chillier than you expected and you had to pull up the blanket from the bottom of the bed. The morning air is crisp, and the Sunday sunrise is tardy. Your schedule includes no productive activity whatsoever. And from the kitchen comes the wafting scent of, you guessed it, coffee cake.
Enjoy.
Coffee Cake:
Recipe below the fold
SOUR CREAM OR BUTTERMILK COFFEECAKE
Topping 1
- 1 cup almonds, pecans or walnuts, chopped or ground
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon (or whatever combination of spices you like)
Topping 2
- 1 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
Batter
- 3 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream (fat) or buttermilk or yogurt (thin)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla (or almond extract)
First: Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Making the Topping: Pick which topping you like. The topping is made first since some of it is incorporated into the cake itself. If you have a blender, you can easily chop your nuts in it. Mix the nuts with the brown sugar and spice.
Making the Batter: Mix together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, cream the butter or margarine. Then add the sugars and eggs, one by one, beating until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Blend the sour cream or buttermilk into the creamed butter/sugar mixture alternately with the dry ingredients, a half at a time. Blend gently until smooth. Add and blend in the vanilla.
Assembling & Baking: Pour half the batter in whatever baking pan you've chosen (see page 111-40). Sprinkle one third of the topping mixture over this, swirl it in with a fork and pour in the rest of the batter. Put a second third of topping over the second layer of batter and swirl that in. Baking times:
One 9 inch springform pan for 60 to 70 minutes
- One 10 inch tube pan, ring mold or Bundt pan for 50 to 60 minutes
- Two 4'/2 x 8'/2 inch loaf pans for 40 to 50 minutes
- Two 8 inch round cake pans for 30 to 35 minutes
Cooling: After your bread has baked, let it cool for about 10 minutes in the pan. This allows the bread to "set" and contract a bit which makes it easier to get out of the pan. Sprinkle the last third of the topping over the coffeecake while it is still warm.
