Coffee Cake Tawk

Coffee cake just makes me smile.


Cinnamon swirly, brown sugar-scented, vanilla-laced, sweet powdered-sugar-glazed coffee cakes are the best variety.

Can't you just breathe it in?

I whipped one up this weekend for an event being held at the Woman’s Civic Club of Hammonton.

But, I often make coffee cake and bring its hominess to my fam. Mommom and Poppop love a coffee cake as do my in-laws. When Mark and I are staying at their Stone Harbor house for the weekends in the summer, we often arrive bearing baked goods. Great company and a fabulous house at the shore are totally worth a coffee cake.

I make this from the recipe in the good, ole’ Betty Crocker’s Cookbook

Yes, I have one of those.

In fact, I think I need to replace it because it is in shambles, dear readers. Those damn red plastic coils break and fall out. And it’s dog-eared, spattered, beaten and battered. But, Betty Crocker’s Cookbook is tried and true for me. It never misses. I love it. It completes me. Plus, I have notes penciled in all over the place in my copy. I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should store it in a Hefty zipper bag or a manilla envelope.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I vividly recall upon my engagement to Mark, heading straight to the cookbook section of Barnes and Noble and buying my Big Red No. 9. I thought Betty Crocker was necessary to be a proper wife.

Could I be more delusional?

But, I do give props to this very basic cookbook. It taught me many, many things.

And it is a purchase that triggered my ongoing obsession with cookbooks. I collect them, dear readers. But, that’s for another post…

Today, it’s all about the coffee cake.

Please note that I omitted the nuts and used extra-large eggs.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
From Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, Ninth Edition

Prep: 30 min; Bake 1 hr.; Cool: 30 min.

Makes 16 servings

Brown sugar filling (see below)
3 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup butter or stick margarine, softened
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
3 large eggs
1 ½ cups sour cream
Vanilla Glaze (see below)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and side of tube pan, 10 x 4 inches, 12-cup bundt cake pan or 2 loaf pans, 9 x 5 x 3 inches, with shortening.

2. Make Brown Sugar Filling. Set aside. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

3. Beat sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Beat about one-fourth of the flour mixture and sour cream at a time alternately into sugar mixture on low speed until blended.

4. For tube or bundt cake pan, spread one-third of the batter (about 2 cups) in pan, then sprinkle with one-third of the filling; repeat twice. For loaf pans, spread one-fourth of the batter, (about 1 ½ cups) in each pan, then sprinkle with one-fourth of the filling; repeat once.

5. Bake tube or bundt cake pan about 1 hour, loaf pans about 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan(s) on wire rack. Remove from pan(s) to wire rack. Cool 20 minutes. Drizzle with Vanila Glaze. Serve warm or cool.

Brown Sugar Filling
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup finely chopped nuts
1 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon

Mix all ingredients.

Vanilla Glaze
½ cup powdered sugar
¼ tsp. vanilla
2 to 3 tsp. milk

Mix all ingredients with a spoon until smooth and thin enough to drizzle.