Effortless Apple Coffee Cake

Yum

My love of apples is calling me.

With the different varieties of apples I've been eating lately I'm on an apple kick.  I wanted to make something comforting and yummy, but I wanted something simple.  

This dish has all the flavors of my mom's homemade coffee cake without all the effort!  

The batter is quick to pull together and in no time you will have a house smelling delectable and a coffee cake just waiting to snack on!

This is so good that you'll want to make this incredibly delicious dish for your next brunch.  

EFFORTLESS APPLE COFFEE CAKE

An old-time coffee cake filled with cinnamonly tart apples and topped of with a delightful crumb topping. Perfect for breakfast, brunch, dessert, or a snack with coffee.  This cake will remind you of your mom's and grandmothers coffee cakes, bring back the nostalgia of long ago!

A dish the whole family will love.  You'll want to make this over and over again!

Effortless Apple Coffee Cake

Topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

Cake:

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1/2 to 3/4 can of a 14oz can apple pie filling

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, Add topping ingredients. Cut in butter with flour, sugar, and cinnamon until crumbly. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with a stand or hand mixer. Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Mix until blended. Add milk and eggs one at a time and mix until well combined.

Pour 1/2 of the batter in to a greased 9x9" pan.  Top the batter with the apple pie filling.  Pour the remainder of the batter over the apple pie filling trying to cover as best as you can.  Sprinkle with the topping mixture.

Bake for 45 - 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes, then slice and serve.

Breakfast Baking with King Arthur Flour: Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake

We have something new in our neighborhood call "The Village".  It's a outdoor street-like restaurant and shopping area filled with new things...and Sur La Table!

I was so happy to get a Sur La Table in our area.  A foodie's candy store is always a kitchen store.  Plus, with the benefit of an onsite cooking classroom in the back I was in heaven! Browsing through the classes offered I spotted one where they partnered with King Arthur Flour to present a fun, hands-on class featuring Breakfast Baking.

If you don't know about King Arthur Flour, you are missing out! King Arthur Flour is America’s oldest flour company, founded in Boston in 1790 bringing top-quality flours to bakers in the United States. Today they reside in Vermont and produce some of the best flours I've ever used.

When I discovered King Arthur's All Purpose Flour I was making a family favorite of homemade egg noodles for a large group of people. The result from this flour was the most tender, soft noodles I've ever made. I've been using King Arthur's flours ever since. 

So I jumped at the chance to attend a backing class in conjunction with King Arthur Flour.  It was fabulous.  We made 3 different baked items in about 2 1/2 hours. Today I'm bringing you an autumn twist on a coffeecake, Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake.  

This is the perfect breakfast or dessert dish.  It has a wonderful Streusel topping with a cinnamon sugar swirl in the middle of the cake.  I love the pumpkin flavoring and the cake turned out moist and tender.  Just perfect.  Another plus it that it doesn't make a ton of cake so I'm not tempted to keep eating it day and night!  It takes a 9" round cake pan or you can use a loaf pan if you prefer.  Just the right size in my book.

Try this wonderful cake and let me know what you think. Remember to try King Arthur Flour as well.  You will definitely enjoy the product it produces.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake

PREP:   20 mins. to 30 mins.
BAKE:   40 mins. to 45 mins.
TOTAL: 60 mins. to 1 hrs 15 mins.
YIELD:  about 12 servings


Topping
2/3 cup granulated sugar
pinch of salt
3/4 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans, optional
4 tablespoons melted butter

Filling
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder, optional

Cake
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup pumpkin purée (canned pumpkin)
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, or 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon plus 1/4 teaspoon each ground ginger and nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

Directions
1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8" square pan or 9" round pan.

2) To make the topping: Whisk together the sugar, salt, flour, spice, and nuts. Add the melted butter, stirring just until well combined. Set the topping aside.

3) To make the filling: Mix together the brown sugar, spice, and cocoa powder. Note that the cocoa powder is used strictly for color, not flavor; leave it out if you like. Set it aside.

4) To make the cake: Beat together the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spices, salt, and baking powder until smooth.

5) Add the flour, stirring just until smooth.

6) Pour/spread half the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it all the way to the edges. If you have a scale, half the batter is about 13 1/2 ounces.

7) Sprinkle the filling evenly atop the batter.

8) Spread the remaining batter atop the filling. Use a table knife to gently swirl the filling into the batter, as though you were making a marble cake. Don't combine filling and batter thoroughly; just swirl the filling through the batter.

9) Sprinkle the topping over the batter in the pan.

10) Bake the cake until it's light brown on top, and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes.

11) Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool for 20 minutes before cutting and serving. Serve the cake right from the pan.

Yield: 1 cake, about 12 servings.
Source: www.KingArthurFlour.com   Published: 11/02/2013

Brown Butter Banana Bread Coffee Cake

I think I've died and gone to HEAVEN!

Now you may be asking why?  The picture above is just a normal looking coffee cake.
Well it's not...

I've discovered brown butter.

Yes, that's right brown butter.

This stuff is straight from the GODS!  I've seen so many recipes floating around the blogesphere about brown butter this and brown butter that....cookies, cakes, ice cream...everything you can imagine and I thought "ehh" "doesn't sound all that special"  Boy was I wrong!

So I came across this simple coffee cake that uses brown butter...and bananas.  I decided to give it a try and see what all the hooplah is about.  Once I got that butter in the pan and stirred and stirred, something magical happened.  It foamed, then turned golden, then the foam went away and the butter became nutty and fragrant.  I just stuck my finger in it for a taste and about swooned! Seriously, I had NO IDEA this tasted so good.  Where the heck have I been that I've not been on the brown butter train!

The rest is history.  It's my new passion.  I'll be making brown butter this and that from now on. You'll get sick of me and brown butter...

Now this coffee cake is a nice moist cake with a crumb topping and bananas inside...but let me tell you, on it's own it's good, but with the brown butter it is fabulous.  Best coffee cake ever!

So if you do anything at all, make something with browned butter (preferably my coffee cake here!). This is so good it should be a bucket list item.  Go forth and brown butter!

Enjoy!



Banana Bread Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Cake:
¾ cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter, browned and divided
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
½ cup milk
1 ½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Topping:
½ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons reserved browned butter
1 cup pecans, chopped (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°.  Spray a 10” pie plate with cooking spray.  Add 6 tablespoons of butter to a small frying pan. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously until it browns. It will foam up, and then turn brown.  The foam will diminish and the butter will become golden. Remove from heat. 

In a medium bowl add the flour, baking powder, and salt.  To a large bowl, mix the sugar, 4 tablespoons of the browned butter, and egg.    Stir in the milk and mashed bananas.  Add the dry ingredients into wet and stir until just combined.  

To make the topping: stir together brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, remaining 2 T. browned butter, and the pecans. Pour the cake batter in to the pan and top with the crumb topping. 

Bake for 25-28 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.


source:  Crazy for Crust blog