I’m always on the lookout for new coffee cake recipes so I was intrigued to find this one for Apple Coffee Cake with Crumble Topping. The cinnamon-spiced cake is moist and filled with apples…perfect for cool Autumn morning gatherings, and great with a cup of coffee!

The recipe calls for making a brown sugar glaze which I thought was totally unneccessary. The cake with the crumble topping is good as is, and doesn’t need more sweetness from the glaze. The cake is best the day it’s made. Enjoy!

Apple Coffee Cake with Crumble Topping
-recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, foodnetwork.com

Serves: 12 servings

Cake:
1 stick plus 2 teaspoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apples

Crumble Topping:
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Brown Sugar Glaze (optional):
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 13 by 9-inch glass baking dish with 2 teaspoons of the butter.

In a large bowl, cream together the remaining stick of butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating after the addition of each. In a separate bowl or on a piece of parchment, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add to the wet ingredients, alternating with the sour cream and vanilla. Fold in the apples. Pour into the prepared baking dish, spreading out to the edges.

To make the topping, in a bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter, and mix until it resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the topping over the cake and bake until golden brown and set, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes.

To make the glaze, in a bowl, combine the sugar, vanilla, and water and mix until smooth. Drizzle the cake with the glaze and let harden slightly. Serve warm.

Tags: apple cake, apple coffee cake with crumble topping, apple desserts, autumn, coffee cake, streusel

Here’s a simple recipe featuring my favorite summer fruit: peaches. The coffee cake is easy to make, delicious, moist and lightly spiced…and perfect with a cup of coffee or tea.

I added an 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg to the batter, and omitted the pecans. The cake is best served the day it’s made, but leftovers are still tasty the next day. Enjoy!

Fresh Peach Cake
-Recipe from Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That?: Fabulous Recipes & Easy Tips (Fabulous Recipes and Easy Tips) by Ina Garten

Level: Easy
Makes 8 servings

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 large ripe peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch-square baking pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and 1 cup of the sugar for 3 to 5 minutes on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add the eggs, one at a time, then the sour cream and vanilla, and mix until the batter is smooth. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix just until combined. In a small bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and the cinnamon.

Spread half of the batter evenly in the pan. Top with half of the peaches, then sprinkle with two-thirds of the sugar mixture. Spread the remaining batter on top, arrange the remaining peaches on top and sprinkle with the remaining sugar mixture and the pecans.

Bake the cake for 45 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tags: Barefoot Contessa, Breakfast, brunch, coffee cake, Ina Garten, peach cake, peaches

Everyone needs an apple cake in their baking repertoire, and this recipe is excellent! The cake is super moist, velvety, slightly tangy from the cream cheese, and loaded with apples…YUMM!

The recipe calls for a 12-cup Bundt pan. My Bundt pan doesn’t say how many cups it holds but rather gives the size (9 3/4″ x 3 3/8″). It can hold 12 cups of water but it’s filled to the rim of the pan. This recipe has a bit too much batter for my pan so I spooned as much into the pan as I could without filling it to the very top (leaving some room for it to expand while baking). Any extra batter can be baked in greased and floured ramekins or muffin tins (they’ll bake in less time, of course).

If you don’t have a Bundt pan, you can use a different baking pan but your baking time will vary. Check out this link for different baking pan size equivalents. Because my oven is old and tempermental, I use the baking time in a recipe as a guideline. Sometimes the item in the oven needs less time, sometimes more time. If you use a different pan size, you’ll need to adjust the baking time.

The apple cake keeps covered at room temperature for several days. Enjoy!

Cream Cheese Apple Cake 
-recipe from The Grand Central Baking Book by Piper Davis and Ellen Jackson

Grand Central has baked this cake in every shape and size imaginable: as cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting, in rounds baked in springform pans, as classic Bundt cakes and currently in long Pullman loaf pans. Because it stays moist for several days, this large cake is tailor-made for a long weekend with friends, providing dessert the first night and leftovers to nibble on for several days to come.  Serves 14 to 16.

3 cups (15 ounces) flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (8 ounces, or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups (1 pound, 1.5 ounces) granulated sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds tart apples (3 or 4 apples), peeled and diced into 1/2-inch chunks
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour a 12-cup Bundt pan.

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon into a bowl.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, cream cheese, and sugar on medium-high speed until the mixture is very light in color –almost white–and the texture is fluffy, about 8 minutes. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl once during the process to ensure that the butter is evenly incorporated.

Crack the eggs into a liquid measuring cup and add the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour in the eggs, letting them fall in one at a time and incorporating each egg completely before adding the next. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl once or twice during the process. 

With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients; stop mixing as soon as the flour is incorporated. Fold the apples in by hand using a stiff spatula, then scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 60 to 75 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time. The cake is ready when a wooden skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Cool completely, then cover with a thick dusting of confectioners’ sugar.

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Tags: apples, Baking, Breakfast, bundt cake, butter, coffee cake, Cream Cheese Apple Cake, Dessert, Grand Central Bakery

In honor of today (November 15) being National Bundt Cake Day, I’m reposting a few delicious bundt cake recipes that are perfect for the upcoming holidays.

And of course, to make a bundt cake, you have to have a bundt cake pan. I love my Nordic Ware Bundt Cake Pan. The pan is heavy duty and has a nonstick finish…it’s awesome! I actually have two of them because I make so many bundt cakes (often times multiple cakes for the same event). If you don’t have a bundt cake pan, are in need of a new one or are looking for a fun gift idea for a baker, you can’t go wrong with a Nordic Ware pan! Every kitchen should have one!! As a side note, Nordic Ware is the company that introduced the bundt cake (and the pan needed to bake it) back in the 1950s.

I believe the world is a happier place because of bundt cakes! Enjoy!

Pumpkin & Ginger Poundcake: This bundt cake is a perfect alternative to pumpkin pie!

Pear Spice Cake: Loaded with pears and warm spices, this simple bundt cake is an Autumn favorite of ours.

Cranberry-Almond Coffee Cake: Great as a coffee cake or dessert, this bundt cake is a perfect use for leftover cranberry sauce.

Tags: Baking, bundt cake, bundt cake pan, coffee cake, Cranberry-Almond Coffee Cake, Dessert, holiday cakes, National Bundt Cake Day, Nordic Ware, Pear Spice Cake, Pumpkin & Ginger Poundcake

If you’ve got a few ripe bananas to use up then you should give this recipe a try. It’s moist, easy to make and a nice change from plain ol’ banana bread. Each bite of this coffee cake is loaded with cinnamon and chocolatey goodness.

The recipe calls for a metal pan but the glass Pyrex 8×8 pan I used worked fine. I added a teaspoon of vanilla to the cake batter and omitted the walnuts from the streusel. Speaking of the streusel, next time I’d only use about a teaspoon of cinnamon instead of the tablespoon that the recipe calls for. And you could cut down on the chocolate chips if you want it less chocolatey.

Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel
-recipe from Bon Appétit Magazine

Use bananas with some black spots on the skin, a sign that they are really ripe. Makes 12 servings.

1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (about 8 ounces)
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 1/3 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 large)
3 tablespoons buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 8x8x2-inch metal baking pan. Stir chocolate chips, brown sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon in small bowl until well blended; set streusel aside. Sift all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, room temperature butter, and egg in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in mashed bananas and buttermilk. Add dry ingredients and blend well.

Spread half of batter (about 2 cups) in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel. Bake coffee cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.

Tags: banana, chocolate chip, coffee cake, struesel

Everyone needs a good coffee cake recipe in their recipe arsenal. I turn to this Sour Cream Coffee Cake regularly because it’s always moist and delicious. Recently I was asked to bake three coffee cakes for a church event. I set aside the whole morning before the event to do my baking, knowing at the time that church that day might be cancelled because of the pre-Christmas snow storm our metro area was receiving. The forecast said more snow through the next few days but I reasoned that if I didn’t bake the coffee cakes and the forecasters were wrong, I’d be up until 3:00am doing the baking (y’know, Murphy’s Law). 

I baked the cakes, let them cool, then drizzled the maple glaze on two of them. The good news: my coffee cakes were beautiful and the whole house was scented with the divine fragrance of brown sugar and cinnamon! The bad news: church was cancelled for that weekend and I now had three whole coffee cakes to do something with. Not wanting them to go to waste, I quickly cut one of the coffee cakes into slices, divvied it up onto a few pretty Christmas plates and handed them out to some of my neighbors to share a little holiday cheer and goodwill. I froze the remaining two cakes and thawed one a week later to serve with breakfast on Christmas morning. The coffee cake was still delicious, moist and fragrant with it’s cinnamon streusel. The only thing I would suggest is to wait on glazing the cake if you plan on freezing it first because the maple glaze gets brittle when frozen and thawed.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
- from Barefoot Contessa Parties! by Ina Garten

Makes 8 to 10 servings

For the cake:
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups sour cream
2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

For the streusel:
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup chopped walnuts, optional

For the glaze:
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons real maple syrup 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for 4 to 5 minutes, until light. Add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and sour cream. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the batter until just combined. Finish stirring with a spatula to be sure the batter is completely mixed.

For the streusel, place the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, and butter in a bowl and pinch together with your fingers until it forms a crumble. Mix in the walnuts, if desired.

Spoon half the batter into the pan and spread it out with a knife. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup streusel. Spoon the rest of the batter in the pan, spread it out, and scatter the remaining streusel on top. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Carefully transfer the cake, streusel side up, onto a serving plate. Whisk the confectioners’ sugar and maple syrup together, adding a few drops of water if necessary, to make the glaze runny. Drizzle as much as you like over the cake with a fork or spoon.

Note: If you don’t have cake flour, you can substitute 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus 1/4 cup cornstarch.

Tags: Breakfast, coffee cake

Cranberry sauce is a must-have with the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Period. You just can’t have turkey and stuffing without a dollop of cranberry sauce somewhere on the plate. With that said, I still can only eat a few tablespoons of this jam-like condiment at a time. It seems that most people would agree judging by the fact that there’s always leftover cranberry sauce after the Thanksgiving meal. So what do we do with all the leftover cranberry sauce? We use it in a coffee cake.

I did a quick search for a cranberry coffee cake recipe and found this one at kingarthurflour.com. It was just what I was looking for. The only thing I did differently was to use a mixture of sour cream and milk in place of the buttermilk. The cake was moist with a light almond flavor, and went perfectly with a hot cuppa joe. If you don’t like almond-flavored treats then just use the same quantity of vanilla extract (it will be just as good). Although the cake was still tasty on the second day, I thought it was best the day it was baked.

Cranberry-Almond Coffee Cake
-recipe from kingarthurflour.com
 
This moist, golden cake hides a double layer of cranberry sauce and a sprinkling of almonds. It’s a lovely cake for Thanksgiving breakfast; and makes a satisfying autumn dessert, as well. This recipe comes from our James Beard award-winning best-seller, “The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.”

Cake
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) butter
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup (8 ounces) buttermilk or yogurt (low-fat is fine)
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (10 3/4 ounces) whole berry cranberry sauce
1/2 cup blanched slivered or sliced almonds, toasted*

Glaze
3/4 cup (3 ounces) confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) milk
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

*Spread almonds in an ungreased 9″ round cake pan, and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 8 to 10 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 10-cup (9″ to 9 ½”) tube pan or bundt-style pan.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar till smooth. Beat in the eggs, then the buttermilk or yogurt and almond extract. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, and beat briefly again, to make sure everything is well combined. Add the baking powder, baking soda, flour, and salt, stirring just to blend. Grease and flour a tube pan. Spoon half of batter into pan. Spread half of cranberry sauce evenly atop batter, then spread remaining batter over that. Top with remaining cranberry sauce, and sprinkle toasted almonds evenly over sauce.

Bake the cake for 55 minutes, tenting it with foil for the final 15 minutes. When it’s done, a cake tester inserted into the thickest part will come out clean, and the top will spring back when you press it gently. Remove the cake from the oven, and cool it in pan for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn it out of the pan onto a rack set over a piece of parchment, and stir together the glaze ingredients.

Drizzle the thin glaze over the warm cake. Let the cake cool completely before serving (or serve it warm, if you don’t mind it crumbling a bit!)
Yield: 1 cake, 14 to 16 servings.

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Tags: almond, Baking, bundt, Christmas, coffee cake, cranberry, holidays, leftover cranberry sauce, Thanksgiving