Quick Coffee Cake

I haven't found the perfect coffee cake yet. Fortunately, I still have plenty of coffee cake recipes to use before I attempt to make my own version. This recipe is pretty good. I think I will try it again at some point and use a larger pan. I didn’t follow the directions completely and the coffee cake puffed up a lot in the center. The recipe said to use two pans, but I only used one 9x9 inch pan. Maybe a 9x13 inch will work better.

The “quick” part of the title is accurate. It only takes a few minutes to mix it up and assemble it all together. You may finish the assembly part before the oven is even preheated! The baking time isn’t too long either: only 30 minutes. The brown sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top is to taste and you can even add some chopped up nuts if you like that sort of thing.

Quick Coffee Cake

2 C flour

3/4 C sugar

2 T unsalted butter, softened

1/4 t salt

1 T baking powder

1 egg

1 C milk

1/4 C butter, melted

1/2 C brown sugar

brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts to sprinkle on top

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sift together the flour and the sugar. Add the salt, softened butter, and baking powder. Mix together as you would for a pie dough. I used a pastry blender. A fork can be used instead, just press it repeatedly through the flour mixture until the butter is combined in.

Lightly beat together the egg and milk in a separate bowl. Add to the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Pour the batter into a greased 9x9 inch pan (or two 9x9 inch pans or a 9x13 inch pan).

Mix together the melted butter and the brown sugar. Add a bit of milk if it seems thick. 

Spread this on top of the batter.

Sprinkle the cinnamon, brown sugar, and nuts on top.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool for 15 minutes before serving. The melted brown sugar gets very hot!

Enjoy.

Cherry Coffee Cake

There are some recipes that, while I’m in the process of making it, I realize I have no idea what it is supposed to look like and I start to think that I’m doing everything all wrong. This is one of those recipes. The batter was very thick and didn’t spread well at all, the batter to cherry goo ratio seemed too heavy on the cherry goo side, and it looked awful after it was assembled. Everything worked out nicely during the baking process, so I guess I can’t complain.

If you don’t like cherries, you can probably substitute the cherry pie filling for another flavor of pie filling without affecting the outcome. I don’t like almond flavoring, so I left that out and doubled the vanilla amount. Keep in mind that this recipe makes a large amount of coffee cake, so be sure you have people to share it with!

Cherry Coffee Cake (Printer-friendly PDF version)

1 1/2 C sugar

1 C butter, softened

1 1/2 t baking powder

1 t vanilla

1 t almond extract

1/4 t salt

4 eggs

3 C flour

1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling

1 C powdered sugar

2 T milk (plus an optional dash of vanilla)

Place the sugar, butter, baking powder, vanilla, almond extract, salt, and eggs into the mixer. Mix until combined on a low speed. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Mix at a high speed for 3 minutes. The mixture will be fluffy.

Reduce the speed to low and slowly stir in the flour. Scrape the side of the bowl once or twice. The batter will be sticky and kind of thick.

Spread 2/3 of the batter on the bottom of a well greased jelly roll pan, 16 x 11 inch pan, or two 9x9 inch pans.

Dump the cherry pie filling on top of the dough and spread it out to the best of your ability. Cherry chunks don’t spread very well.

Drop spoonfuls of the remaining batter on top of the pie filling, spaced out somewhat evenly. Make a vain attempt to spread the batter. It will mix with the cherry goo and not want to spread very much.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40-45 minutes, or until light brown.

Stir together the powdered sugar and milk with a fork. Drizzle this glaze over the coffee cake while it is still warm.

Serve warm or cool completely before serving.

Enjoy!

German Coffee Cake

Here is another coffee cake recipe. You can never have too many of these. At least that seems to be the opinion of all these cook books. There are plenty more and they all seem to vary in some way. Luckily, all coffee cake seems to be very easy to make and, so far, they all have different flavors.

I'm guessing that the ingredient which made this coffee cake German was the nutmeg. I didn't use nutmeg when I made this recipe because most people around here don't like that flavor much. I just doubled the amount of cinnamon. I also didn't put nuts in it. Other than that, it is a very yummy coffee cake!

German Coffee Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Recipe)

2 C flour

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t cinnamon

1 t salt

4 t baking powder

3/4 C sugar

1/4 C shortening

2 eggs

1 C milk

1/4 C butter, softened or melted

1 C brown sugar, packed

1 C nuts

1/2 t cinnamon

4 T flour

In a bowl, stir together the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

Mix together the sugar and shortening until well combined.

Beat in the eggs for about 30 seconds.

Alternate mixing in the flour and milk. I did three additions of flour and two additions of milk. Pour this batter into a 9x13inch greased pan.

Stir together the butter, brown sugar, nuts, cinnamon, and flour.

Sprinkle the brown sugar mixture over the batter in the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting. The cake is very soft and crumbly!

Enjoy!

Easy Coffee Cake

For me to consider a recipe to be "easy", I have to be able to make it only using a bowl and a wooden spoon. Wooden spoons are the best kitchen utensil. (If you disagree, you can claim a wooden fork to be the best.) This coffee cake recipe fits my definition of easy. It also tastes pretty good.

This recipe doesn't make a lot of coffee cake, just a nice little loaf. If you are having a few people over, I would recommend having this for a snack. Bake it so that the coffee cake is coming out of the oven as people arrive. It tastes much better warm. The amount of cinnamon and brown sugar used is up to you, so you can make it as cinnamony or sugary as you want.

The hardest part of this recipe was figuring out how much butter "half an egg" is. I set an egg next to a stick of butter and guessed. An egg seems to be 3 T of butter, so I used 1 1/2 T butter for this recipe. However, eggs come in different sizes. It doesn't even specify what species of egg to use. An egg from a chicken isn't the same size as an egg from an ostrich. So, if you really like buttery foods, you can make an argument to use more butter in the recipe.

Easy Coffee Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1/2 C sugar

1 1/2 T Butter (or size of 1/2 egg)

1/2 C milk

1 C flour

1 t baking powder

brown sugar and cinnamon to taste

1 T butter

Toss the softened half egg of butter in a mixing bowl with the sugar. Stir until well blended.

Pour in the milk. Stir well. This may be a bit lumpy, but that is okay.

Add the flour and baking powder. Stir until combined. The batter will be thick and gritty.

Scoop the batter into a well greased loaf pan. Break up the 1 T of butter and place this on top of the batter. Now sprinkle some brown sugar and cinnamon on top.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Poke it with a toothpick to make sure it is finished baking. Let cool for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Enjoy!