Blue Ribbon Coffee Cake

Baking has been slow for the past couple weeks. I usually do all my baking on the weekends so I’ll have a post up by Monday and Thursday. But these past two weeks have been hectic. I’ve been writing 11 page lab reports, studying for tests, doing two hours worth of math homework, and goodness knows what else. It’s all starting to run together. So this past weekend I took it easy. I’m sort of regretting it now though. Since I decided to do minimal homework, it’s all piling up on itself and I feel like I’m drowning in stuff. But it’s ok. When I get going, the workload doesn’t seem as bad anymore. I guess it’s all about balance, right?

So while I was having a leisurely weekend, something delicious came out of the kitchen. It’s coffee cake. I haven’t had coffee cake in the longest time. And I certainly can’t remember the last time I baked coffee cake.

This coffee cake recipe comes from one of my favorite blogs: Baked Bree. She made this cake back in September and divided the batter between four of the cutest little tube pans I have ever seen. I don’t have cute tube pans so I just made mine in a regular 9 inch square pan, but that doesn’t alter the taste I swear.

This coffee cake is perfectly soft. Even when I was cutting it into squares I could tell how tender this cake was going to be. The top is sugary, kind of like the top of crème brule, only better because it’s crumbly. I found the texture of the cake to be at its best the day it was made, but when heated up the next day and topped with a little bit of vanilla bean ice cream, it’s pure heaven. Seriously. The melted ice cream gets into the little cracks of the cake and the sugary topping soaks up all the ice cream. Plus the warm/cold combo is just so nice.

This cake didn’t last more than 24 hours (I may or may not have been the reason for that). So when you feel like having a slack day, make this coffee cake, you wont be sorry.

Blue Ribbon Coffee Cake

Hardly adapted from Baked Bree

Makes one 9 inch square pan

Ingredients

1/3 cup (63 g) dark brown sugar

¼ cup (48 g) sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup (120 g) unbleached all-purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 egg, room temperature

½ cup (96 g) sugar

4 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

½ tsp. pure vanilla extract

4 oz. sour cream (I used light)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line a 9 inch square pan with tin foil. Grease tin foil with cooking spray; set aside.

In a small bowl, mix together the dark brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla (this is the cinnamon-vanilla-sugar topping for the top of the cake). Set the bowl aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer filled with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fully. Add the egg and the vanilla extract and beat until smooth. The mixture may look a little curdled, but that’s ok, it will smooth out eventually.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture in the bowl. Beat on low speed until the flour is fully incorporated. The batter will look and feel very sticky, almost light a dough. Add the sour cream and beat until smooth.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. It will look like there is not enough batter for the pan, but just keep spreading and it will distribute itself out. Sprinkle the reserved cinnamon-vanilla-sugar topping on top of the cake. Place pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the top is slightly golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.