Sour Cream Coffee Crumb Cake

Okay, I gotta say this is hands down the moistest most delish coffee cake I’ve ever made. I’ve made it many times already, always to acclaim (my BIL who’s watching what he eats took a tiny piece, then another, then another, you get the drift) nobody seems able to resist it. It lasted for 5 days (count ’em) and by the sixth day was just a tad stale – DH happily ate a nice piece every day. It’s based (with, of course, changes that I made) on a recipe by Sally’s Baking Addiction. It’s worth making the whole cake, and if it’s too large for you, freeze half cuz it’s so yummy and freezes so very well.

I will also add a note here, that I made this cake in a variety of ways (testing it) and it really works best when you use a food processor. I’ve also done the whole thing by hand and it definitely works but I found an edge in the food processor method, just sayin’.

So gather your ingredients on our journey to the best coffee cake imho!

Okay, since I know my readers, I’m stopping you in your tracks. No, this has to be made with either butter or margarine, you cannot sub it out with oil, just won’t taste the same. Yes, there are other recipes on the blog that use oil and give you a lovely fluffy cake but not this type of coffee cake. K. Glad we cleared that up 🙂 . Onward.

Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C.

Take out your food processor and you are gonna make the crumb topping/filling first. A note. The beauty of this recipe (thank you Sally for this clever hack) is that the topping and the filling are one and the same and once prepared and set aside you do not have to make an additional filling. It’s a very nice touch.

Please do do this in this order, i.e. the topping first because you will then use the processor again for combining other parts of the cake. Onward. So put the topping ingredients in – flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and cubed margarine or butter which is very cold (straight from the fridge, no softening it).

Pulse, pulse, pulse just till you get a nice crumbly mixture like so:

You will see this makes a generous amount, enough for both the filling and topping. K. Set aside.

Now in a bowl, mix together the flour, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. You might ask why bother to mix together since you will add the liquid ingredients and mix then? Good question. By mixing in the whole dry lot together, you evenly distribute it through the flour thereby giving a proper sweetness, saltiness and rise to the whole cake. Just sayin’.

Now in your dirty (from topping) food processor, bung in the butter/marg, which I do zap briefly in the microwave to soften (this is the second lot of butter/marg, that’s correct. First part keep cold, second soften) eggs, sour cream, or Greek yogurt or soy yogurt and vanilla extract. Blitz in food processor till smooth. It should look like this:

Now pour the wet combined mixture over the flour mixture and combine just till fully mixed without pockets of flour but don’t overdo, you don’t wanna toughen the cake.

Now take a 9 x 13 inch (23 x 33 cm) rectangular pan and line with parchment paper or if non-stick, spray well with oil spray. Take about half the batter (a little less) and smooth into the pan.

Now take a bit less than half the crumb topping/filling and sprinkle all over the batter. Then dollop the rest of the batter over the crumbs like so:

Gently smooth the batter over the crumbs, don’t press down since they will stay suspended in the middle of the batter as the filling.

No worries if the top batter looks a bit thin, it’ll rise and be fine. Now sprinkle the rest of the crumbs over this second layer of batter.

Pop the cake into the hot oven and bake about 42-50 minutes (depends on how hot your oven runs) or till toothpick comes out clean.

I wanted you to get a gander at the whole cake so you don’t worry you’ve done something wrong. As you see, the crumbs sorta shrink a bit and bits of browned cake peek through. This is completely normal and it’s all good.

Let cool before cutting into squares. Wonderful with, yeah you got it, a cup of coffee! Okay, tea too. Divine!

Sour Cream Coffee Crumb Cake

Crumb topping and filling:

1 cup (200g) packed dark brown sugar

1 and 1/4 cups (156g) all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

10.62 Tablespoons .66 cups(150g) butter/margarine, cold and cubed

Cake:

2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour,

1 cup (200g) granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (170g) butter/margarine really softened

3 large eggs

1 cup (300g) sour cream, Greek yogurt or soy yogurt (or non-dairy sour cream if you can get it)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Put crumb ingredients- flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter/marg into food processor and pulse on and off just till crumbs form. Set aside in bowl .

In separate bowl, mix cake ingredients – flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda. In same (dirty) food processor, blitz softened butter/margarine, eggs sour cream, and vanilla until smooth. Pour over flour mixture. Mix just till smooth (quite thick) spread a little less than half in 9 x 13 inch/23 x 33 cm parchment paper lined or if non-stick oil sprayed pan. Top with a bit less than half the crumbs. Dollop remaining batter on top and gently smooth over crumbs. It make look a bit thin but that’s fine, it will rise. When spreading second lot of batter on crumbs, do it with a light hand, not pressing crumbs down since it’s your filling. Then cover with the rest of the crumbs. Bake 42-50 minutes or till golden brown and wooden toothpick comes out clean.