coffeecake

Apple Crumb Coffee Cake

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

I was chatting with a colleague this week about cooking and baking and cookbooks. He said he inherited a cookbook and maybe should find it and cook from it. When I told him I have 50+ cookbooks he asked “how do you know which recipe to use?” That question has been haunting me all weekend. I wanted to bake bread. I wanted to bake cookies. I needed to make quiche for a church event. Which recipes to use? I was perusing several cookbooks and found there are too many choices. I make a list for each cookbook on what I want to try and then go to the next book. Reading cookbooks has always been enjoyable but having too many is like 31 flavors and asking a toddler to choose chocolate or vanilla!

I was reading and rereading through my Fleischman’s Yeast Bread booklet. This has been used for so many years that the cover is no longer attached. Choices, choices, choices! I thought about making the sour dough starter. I thought about making Lucia buns and a chocolate yeast cake. After an hour or so I settled on the Apple Crumb Coffeecake. We have some older apples that need to be used. So after several cups of coffee and cookbook browsing on a lazy Saturday morning I bake.

  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (equivalent to one package active dry)
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 2 eggs at room temperature
  • 2 large apples, cored, peeled and sliced
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 6 tablespoons butter

In mixer bowl mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, salt and yeast. In a Pyrex glass measuring cup put the water, milk, and 1/3 cup butter. I nuke this in the microwave for 1-2 minutes until 120 degrees. I use a thermometer as I have been known to kill yeast with too hot liquids. Gradually add the liquid to the dry ingredients and beat two minutes on medium speed. I am using the regular paddle and not the dough hook for this. The recipe is in the section on “no need to knead”. Add eggs and 1/2 cup flour or enough to make a thick batter. I used the total of 2 1/4 cups at this point. Beat at high speed for 2 minutes. Spread evenly in a 9 inch square pan that has been greased or sprayed.

Meanwhile I am cutting up apples and sprinkling a bit of lemon juice on them. Arrange these on top of the batter in the pan. I have not yet made the crumb topping either. So I melt the last 6 tablespoons of butter (not the best way to make crumb) and add the 2/3 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. This makes a paste vs. a crumble and I diligently spread this onto the apples. Cover and let rise for about an hour. It should double in bulk.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 35-40 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Looks good. Mine bubbled up a bit on the edges due to the melting of the butter in my crumb/paste.

Very tasty!

Next on the baking list was quiche. My standard quiche is 4 eggs and 2 cups cream/milk/half-and-half per 9-inch pie. Add whatever else you fancy, cheese, onion, bacon, etc. Here’s the final product:

Two for the church, two tart-lets for our supper.

Coming up next time: shortbread…

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Procrastibake: Streusel Coffee Cake

~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

So my house needed cleaning. I did eventually get around to it but not before I found lots of other things to pay attention to. And baking is one of those things that is easy to get lost in especially when the weather in Southern New England switches from summer to winter every other day! This past week seems to have alternated rainy cold days with warm sunny “sit in the backyard with a cocktail” days.

This recipe is from my standard 1978/1969 Betty Crocker Cookbook. I chose not to make the sour cream coffee cake because I had cow’s milk in the fridge that needed to be used. This can be made in a 9-inch square pan or a 9 x 13 inch pan. I chose the 9-inch square.

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup raisins (my addition)

First of all, I only had 1/3 cup butter in the fridge. I did not want to wait for the frozen butter to thaw. And I will need 3 more tablespoons of butter for the streusel. What to do? I have a handy dandy jar of coconut oil in the pantry. It really is not an appropriate substitute for butter but for oil, but I have used in for cookies in the past, so went for it anyway. So I used 2 Tablespoons coconut oil with 3 Tablespoons butter in the cake.

Make the streusel by mixing all together the following:

  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (I may have added some to the cake as well)
  • 3 tablespoons butter (I had 2 of butter and 1 of coconut oil)
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts (I had used all the nuts earlier in the week so left these out)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. For the cake beat all of the first list of ingredients in a mixing bowl for 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Lightly grease the pan and spread 1/2 the batter in the pan. Sprinkle on half the streusel. Spread the remaining batter on top and then sprinkle with the rest of the streusel. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

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Oh, and I mixed in a quarter cup of oats with the streusel.

The 9 inch square pan needed 45-50 minutes to bake completely.

The amount of streusel was barely enough. I don’t think it would have worked at all as layering in a 9 x 13 inch pan. In future make twice the amount for either sized cake.

This is a nice moist cake. I will make it again. I may have actually made it a long time ago as I vaguely remember having the same thoughts about the amount of streusel.

 

Your Standard Sour Cream Coffee Cake

~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

Greetings! I am always so happy and surprised that you read what I write. I was going to be a poet when I was a teen, but I guess it was not my calling. I do love to write, so I am happy to have readers. Thank you! 🙂

So it was a gloomy summer day. And in my effort to suck all the joy out of life…oops! I mean in my renewed effort to breathe in all the joy that life has to offer…I thought I should make myself write a blog post weekly.

(Now that I have said “weekly” don’t hold me to it because…life happens, along with moods, and I don’t always like to make commitments!)

20170530_220846485_iOSA week or so ago I made a coffee cake for work. I did not have sour cream (or did not look for it in my fridge) so I browsed through cookbooks to come up with something. I made a blueberry buckle with blueberries and cranberries without the buckle. It had the fruit but it also had the streusel topping. I baked it in a tube pan so it really did not buckle. I think “buckle” is the way the fruit indents the top of the cake. The people at work loved it and here is a picture. This is basically 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 cup milk, and one egg and 1 cup fruit.

So on this gloomy summer’s eve, I figure it is a good baking day. I will make a sour cream coffee cake because I recently spied sour cream in my fridge. Where’s the recipe? I go to my Settlement Cookbook because it is full of standard baking fare from kitchens of generations of women gone by.

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 cup sour cream

preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray or grease a 10 inch tube pan. Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla. Add eggs one at at time. Sift dry ingredients together and add to butter mixture alternately with the sour cream.

Topping: mix 6 Tab. of softened butter (I accidentally melted mine) with 1 cup packed brown sugar, 2 tsp. cinnamon, and 1 cup chopped nuts.

Put half the batter in the pan. Sprinkle (or glob) on 1/2 the topping, layer the other half of the batter and the rest of the topping. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Let cool in pan 10 minutes before removing.

So the cake is in the oven, Hubby is at the dentist, and I am putting the dog out in the yard, going out to un-loop him from the various patio furniture and bushes at least three times, and thinking that this is a standard sour cream coffee cake that is probably found in all those cookbook collections that various churches and other organizations put together as fundraisers. So I peruse a few of those.

The first one I look through has Sour Cream Coffee Cake and the streusel is just sugar, cinnamon, and nuts. Cool! Because I knew that the streusel topping for my first coffee cake has flour in it and I thought that was pretty standard. So I continue reading this recipe and get to the end and see who submitted it. My sister! Gave me a little joy to see her name at the bottom of the recipe!

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Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Coffee Cake for a Holiday Monday

~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

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I had a little helper earlier this weekend. My granddaughter “helped” roll out pie dough and punch down sourdough bread dough. Some of the first “toys” I gave her were a set of colorful measuring spoons and plastic measuring cups.

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I think I tried to have my own two kids help out in baking but I do not remember. Raising them was full of the chaos of frantically wanting to raise them in a perfect manner to avoid all the ills of racism, sexism, and stereotypes in our world. I was not a “go with the flow” parent; I second guessed myself and over thought almost everything. But that doesn’t mean these weren’t enjoyable and meaningful years. I would just do some things differently if I were a parent now. But isn’t that the way it is for a lot of things in our pasts once we have life experience under our belt?

I decided to make the Cheddar Apple Coffee Cake for this lazy Monday morning. In afterthought I should have gotten up at 5:00 AM when I first awoke to start this but too late now. So it is after 10:00 when we are eating freshly baked coffee cake with our leftover coffee.

columbusdayweekend 034Mis en place. All except the flour which I had to pull out of the cupboard while mixing was in process.

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So here I am in my kitchen peeling and chopping apples. I am thinking about the Vietnamese family that lived with my family in the 1970s following the fall of Saigon. Hoa (wife and mother) could peel apples and potatoes so thin; Mom and I were impressed. I’ve never been able to replicate that but try from time to time. I dice up the cheddar cheese block and wonder if there will be some left for my husband to have with chips or crackers later.

King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook, Page 104: Topping is 1 Cup Flour, 1 Cup Brown Sugar, 2 teas cinnamon, 1/2 Cup Butter. Mix together until looks like fine crumbs. I added sliced almonds to this.

I could not find this recipe on the KAF website. So I will write it here. It is a basic coffeecake made with buttermilk. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl: 2 Cups flour, 1 Cup whole wheat flour, 1 Tab baking powder, 1/2 teas baking soda, 1 teas salt.

In mixer bowl beat 3 eggs, 1/4 Cup oil, and 1 1/2 Cups sugar for 3 minutes. I added about 1/2 teas almond extract here. Mix in the buttermilk, 1 Cup, alternately with the flour mixture in two parts. Now stir in apples and cheddar cheese, diced and chopped 1 1/2 Cups each.

Pour into pan that has been greased and floured. Add 1/2 batter, cover with topping, repeat. Bake 350 degrees (F) for 50-60 minutes. My oven required 60 minutes. Cool in pan for ten minutes, then turn out onto plate.

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The KAF cookbook section on coffee cakes teaches about the basics of coffee cakes and the options one has regarding pan sizes and additions. This is good because I added a bit of almond extract to the batter and forgot to save a third of the topping to sprinkle on the cake after turning onto the plate. This plate is one my mother gave me. She had it in the gift box it came in and I am not sure if it was ever used or not. She wanted me to have it. That is what matters. And this is her signature topping: sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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Be sure to clean up aftewards.

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