Coffee cake

SWC wanted coffee cake for his birthday so I cracked open the wonderful, 'Classic Home Desserts' by Richard Sax cookbook and made the Quintessential Coffee Cake.

It's not what I think of as coffee cake - I think of a white, fluffy, moist cake with thick brown streusel on top. This cake was made with brown sugar so was more molasses-y. And I messed up the streusel by putting the sugar-butter-flour mixture in the food processor, so when I put it on the cake, instead of nice little buttery-sugary chunks, it was like dusting the cake with flour. Yuck! I saved it by applying copious quantities of butter and sugar to the top of the cake about 5 mins before it was done baking.

So the result was nice. A very moist, soft cake. The topping was crunchy and sweet enough, with no flour chunks - a decent save.

But next time: do the butter cutting with knives and make sure the streusel is chunky before applying to cake. Also may want to investigate other coffee cake recipes in order to achieve My Perfect Coffee Cake. Or maybe just try this recipe with white sugar, not brown?

3/4 cup butter, unsalted
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt thinned with milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F/180C (160C fan). Butter a 13-by-9-inch dish or two 8-inch squares.Cut butter into brown sugar and flour with pastry blender or knives until crumbly. Save 1 cup for topping.

Beat baking soda into buttermilk. Add to dry ingredients. Add egg, vanilla and salt and stir until smooth. Scrape batter into pan, smooth on top. Sprinkle crumbs over the top.

Bake until golden brown, about 30 mins. Cool on wire rack. Cut and serve.