Thursday, June 21, 2007

Where's the Coffee???



Funny story - I've always thought coffee cake would be made with coffee... guess not! I'm making one for a church coffee hour this weekend and had to search for a recipe - can you believe none of my cook books had one?
Here's the recipe I found on allrecipes.com... no coffee, but it does sound tasty and easy to make!
Just pulled this out of the oven - it looks and smells amazing! Photos coming soon!

Ingredients:
1 cup of butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. aluminium-free baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup water
1 cup plain yogurt (the original recipe called for sour cream but I realized I didn't have any so I subbed yogurt)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup sugar (yes, in addition to the cup above. You need them separated).
2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Method:

1. Place a rack on the lowest level of your oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch tube or angel-food pan.

2. In a large bowl, cream together 1 cup of sugar and the butter. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and stir the flour mixture into the sugar mixture. Finally, stir in the water, vanilla, and sour cream or yogurt. ***If you are using a KA/other stand mixer to mix this cake, I do not recommend using it to mix in the water/vanilla/yogurt mix! I did this and it made a huge mess. Instead, mix it in by hand until it's not so runny, then return it to the stand mixer to work out the
lumps.***

3. In a small bowl, combine the walnuts, 1/2 cup sugar, and cinnamon. I actually split this into two batches - 1/2 cup walnuts, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 tsp. cinnamon each - this way, I had equal amounts for the center of the cake and the top. Pour half the cake batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle half the nut mixture over this layer. Top the nut mixture with the remaining cake
batter and sprinkle the top with the remaining nut mixture.

4. Bake for 50-60 minutes on the lowest rack of the oven (50 and it was perfect in my oven) - I checked it with a cake tester for done-ness. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

The cinnamon-sugar and walnut topping was really delicious! I really think it made the whole cake! I wish I had a photo of it after I cut into it... the middle layer "swirled" a bit so it looked almost like a marble cake - very pretty!

Reference:
The original recipe was Coffee Cake Supreme which was posted on All Recipes by Allison O'Brien.

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