Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

For some reason people in the UK don't seem to understand coffee cake. When I say I'm making it, the first reaction is usually 'oh but I don't like coffee flavoured things', and I have to patiently explain that no, dumbass, it's not coffee flavoured cake, it is a cake that goes very well with coffee, or tea. Coffee cake is an American thing, usually a basic sweet cake with a nutty and cinammony layer or swirl.

What a finished cake should look like

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

This recipe comes from Williams Sonoma online. As I mentioned in my earlier post about banana bread, you can't access it here in the UK because of GDPR regulations.

Ingredients:

Streusel:

3 Tbsp plain flour

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 Tbsp butter (30g) at room temperature

1 cup chopped toasted pecans or walnuts*

Coffee Cake:

185g butter or baking margarine at room temperature

1 1/4 cups white sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

375g sour cream

Instructions:

For the Streusel:

Combine the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl

Add the butter and nuts, using a fork or a pastry blender, mix until crumbly, set aside

For the Cake:

Preheat an oven to 350˚F/180˚C

Grease and flour a 10 x 10 cake pan or similar size

Beat together butter/margarine and sugar on medium-low speed until creamy

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla extract

In 3 additions, add the dry ingredients alternating with the sour cream

Begin and end with the dry ingredients, it does not have to be exact measurements, but the order is: flour mix - sour cream - flour mix - sour cream - flour mix

Mix on low speed until the batter is blended and smooth

The following images show the butter/sugar mix, the mixture after the eggs and vanilla, and the final batter

Pour half the batter into the prepared pan and smooth over the surface

Sprinkle evenly with the streusel filling

Cover the filling with the other half of the cake batter

The following pictures show the process of filling the pan. I forgot to take the picture of the streusel layer before I started on the top layer, hence one of the corners being covered in the second photo

Bake until the cake passes the clean knife test, c. 45 minutes

According to the recipe this should be 40-45 minutes, this cake took about 70 minutes to be cooked enough.

If you notice that the top has browned quickly, cover loosely with foil to prevent burning and uneven cooking, usually about halfway through

The first picture is when I realised it was time to cover in foil,

The second is the finished cake

Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out to cool completely

Note the streusel layer is visible in the second photo

It is very easy to eat a lot of this cake without realising. Be conscious of this warning.

*A note about toasting nuts. Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C. Spread the nuts out evenly over a baking tray (as pictured below), and roast for up to ten minutes. When you can smell them, that is an indication that they are done