Coffee Cake

Iced tea recipe
Coffee cake is a small cake with a rich and full flavored. Usually they have a fruit or nut base to them. They are served with coffee or tea eaten as a breakfast break or brunch.
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Sitting leisurely in the morning with a slice of Coffee Cake and a steaming cup of coffee, is one of life's little pleasures. While this may not be possible on busy weekdays, it does make for a very special weekend treat. This Coffee Cake is rich and buttery with a nice tender crumb. What sets this Coffee Cake apart from other types of cakes is its' vein of streusel running through the center, as well as on top, of the cake. The streusel, when baked, becomes slightly crunchy with a nice grainy texture which contrasts so well with the softness of the cake. I love to serve this cake while it is still warm from the oven with, if I dare, a dollop of softly whipped cream.
Coffee Cakes are the informal cakes, the ones for everyday. Although called a "Coffee" Cake, they do not contain coffee. The name more often refers to how the cake is eaten - in the morning with a cup of coffee. They differ from a regular cake in that they are not multi-layered and are not filled and frosted with an icing. However, both types of cake do use a similar batter, albeit a coffee cake batter is richer in taste and texture because of the addition of sour cream. (You can replace the sour cream with plain yogurt for a lighter cake.) The amount of butter, eggs, and sour cream contained in the batter determines how rich the cake will be. Coffee cakes are instantly recognizable by their streusel topping ('streusel' is German for 'sprinkle') made from a delicious mixture of sugar, flour, and spices to which nuts and sometimes chocolate chips, fruit, or oats are added. The streusel can be used both as a filling and as a topping for coffee cakes. Coffee Cakes are best the day they are made and, if possible, serve them warm from the oven.
Coffee Cake Topping:
1 cup (100 grams) walnuts or pecans
1/4 cup (50 grams) light brown sugar
1/3 cup (50 grams) mini chocolate chips
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon (12 grams) all purpose flour
Coffee Cake:
2 cups (200 grams) sifted cake flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons (140 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
Coffee Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Place the nuts on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until fragrant and lightly browned. Let cool and then coarsely chop. Set aside.
Coffee Cake Topping: In a small bowl stir together the sugar, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, ground cinnamon and flour. Set aside.
Butter and flour (or spray with a non stick vegetable/flour spray) a 9-inch (23 cm) spring form pan. Line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment paper.
In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter until softened (about 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in three additions) and sour cream (in two additions) alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Mix only until combined.
Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula. Sprinkle about half of the nut topping on top of the batter. Cover with the remaining batter and then sprinkle with the remaining nut topping. Bake for about 40 - 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let rest for about 10 minutes before releasing the sides of the pan.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
An oatmeal raisin cookie sounds like a simple thing – and it can be, judging by the number of totally mediocre oatmeal raisin cookies that are out there – but when you get a good one, it can be heavenly. It will have just the right amount of cinnamon to set off the buttery notes in the nutty, oatmeal-packed dough, and highlight plump, sweet raisins. They are all great flavors, and there is no reason why they should only come together in cookie form. This is what inspired this Oatmeal Raisin Coffee Cake.
This cake is delicious, and perhaps doubly so for fans of oatmeal raisin cookies! It is sweet and buttery, with great flavor from brown sugar, oatmeal, cinnamon and raisins. Unlike a cookie, this cake isn’t chewy. It is moist and tender, with just enough richness to make it just as suitable for dessert as it is for breakfast or tea.
The cake is a simple buttermilk cake with oatmeal added to the batter. I prefer quick cooking oats (not instant) because of their not-too-big size and finer texture, and you can make them by pulsing regular rolled oats in the food processor a few times if you don’t have them. The filling and topping for this coffee cake are made with the same mixture, but raisins and chopped pecans are added to the filling of the cake. The topping will melt a bit into the cake itself as it bakes, but this just distributes all its brown sugar, cinnamon and butter goodness over the entire cake.
Calling something a coffee cake is, more often than not, just an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. I don’t need an excuse to eat cake for breakfast, but I am a huge fan of coffee cake nevertheless. This coffee cake does have a little bit of redeeming nutritional value so, just in case you ever feel guilty reaching for that second slice with your morning coffee, you can bake this up and not think twice about it. The coffee cake is made with whole grain flour and is packed with antioxidant-rich cherries. Of course, it is also buttery, tender and topped off with a crispy cinnamon streusel, too.
This coffee cake is very easy to make because the streusel and the batter start off with the same base. You simply set some of the mixture of flour, butter and sugar aside after mixing them together for the streusel and add it back before baking. The cake is very soft, tender and moist. It does have a subtle whole wheat flavor to it, but it doesn’t have any of the heaviness that you might associate with whole wheat baked goods. Since the butter is blended in with the flour, it really gives the cake a lovely light, even texture. White whole wheat flour is the best choice for this recipe because it has a slightly milder flavor than regular whole wheat and makes for a slightly sweeter streusel. If you don’t have it, I would opt for a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and all purpose.
You can use fresh cherries, jarred cherries or frozen cherries for this recipe. With frozen cherries, you can either defrost and drain then before adding, or simply add a minute or two to the baking time to account for the face that they will make the batter a littler colder than fresh cherries will. I like sweet black cherries and Morello cherries, but even very tart cherries are a good option for this recipe if you like things a little less sweet. As it is, this is not a particularly sweet coffee cake – just sweet enough to keep you wanting more.
Whole Wheat Cherry Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups white whole wheat flour, divided
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk (any kind)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups cherries (fresh, jarred or frozen)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9-inch square cake pan.
In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter until light. Beat in 1 cup of the flour, just until mixture resembles very coarse sand. Remove 1 cup of mixture to a small bowl and set aside.
Beat baking powder and salt into the remaining flour mixture (in the large bowl). Add in milk, egg and vanilla and stir well, then mix in remaining flour until mixture is well-combined. Stir in cherries. Pour into prepared pan and spread into an even layer.
Add ground cinnamon to the flour mixture in the small bowl. Grab small handfuls of the cinnamon mixture and squeeze, allowing the mixture to clump slightly. Sprinkle the clumps over the cake batter in an even layer.
Bake for 30-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack.
Sometimes a really simple cake is best, and that is usually how I classify a coffee cake. Even though they generally have a streusel or crumb topping, the cakes don’t need any frosting and never require the same time commitment that a layer cake does. It is also nice that coffee cake lends itself to many different flavor variations, so no matter how simple, it is never boring.
This coffee cake is a plain vanilla buttermilk cake with chocolate chips mixed into the batter and topped with cinnamon streusel. It straddles the line between a breakfast cake and a dessert cake for two reasons. First, the chocolate is a desserty addition because coffee cakes often stick with fruit – blueberries, strawberries, etc. – as a mix-in. Second, the texture of this cake is quite rich. It has a tight, tender crumb, and almost seems to melt into your mouth as you eat it. The vanilla comes through in the finished cake, but you also taste the richness of the butter and buttermilk in the batter. The streusel topping, which is also buttery, contributes to this.
Speaking of the topping, this is not the kind of cake that has an extra-thick layer of crumb topping. The streusel mix just about cover the top, adding a bit of extra sweetness and some great texture to the cake. Even though I’m a big fan of topping on coffee cakes, I think that this amount of streusel was just right for this particular cake.
You can use any 9-inch round cake pan for this coffee cake. The cake can be cooled right in the pan and served from it, so there is no need to worry about trying to pry it out of the pan before you slice it. That said, it’s nice to use a spring form pan if you have one because it gives you the ability to remove the sides of the pan – making it that much easier to slice and serve.
Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt
3 tbsp butter, chilled
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan (a springform is a good choice).
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt together.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract. Mix in half of the flour mixture, followed by the buttermilk and then the rest of the flour mixture. Stir only until no streaks of flour remain, then stir in chocolate chips.
Pour batter into prepared pan, then prepare the topping.
In a small or medium bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, ground cinnamon and salt. Cut butter into several chunks and add to flour mixture. Rub in with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse sand. Sprinkle evenly onto cake batter already in pan.
Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes in a 9-inch round pan, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with only a few moist crumbs attached.
Cool cake completely (in the pan is fine) on a wire rack before serving.