Zesty Orange Streusel Coffee Cake

pretty coffee cake, just out of the oven

I wanted to make a coffee cake one Saturday morning but didn't have a tried and true recipe...so I adapted a couple of Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipes from Rose's Heavenly Cakes and made my own. Since it's an adaptation, I'll include my recipes below for the streusel filling and for the cake itself. I didn't make the full streusel filling recipe because I only needed it for filling and not to cover the top of a cake, so my measurements are approximate. Use more or less, to your liking (you don't need much more though!).

Streusel Filling ingredients (adapted from Cinnamon Crumb Topping, by Rose Levy Beranbaum)
approx. 70 grams (3/4 cup) walnut halves, finely chopped
2 T melted butter
approx. 50 grams (1/4 cup or so) total of light brown sugar and granulated sugar, use mostly brown sugar
30 grams (1/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/2 t cinnamon
scant 1/4 t freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 t cardamom
drop of orange oil

Streusel instructions: melt the butter and stir in the sugars, spices, flour, and orange oil. Mix in the flour and the finely chopped walnuts. Set aside.

Zesty Orange Streusel Coffee Cake ingredients (adapted from Lemon Poppy Seed Sour Cream Cake, by Rose Levy Beranbaum)
2 large eggs PLUS 1 large egg yolk, at room temp
200 grams (3/4 c plus 1 T) plain, full fat, strained Greek yogurt (I used Fage), separate out approx. 1/4 cup which you'll use to mix with the eggs. I think you could also use sour cream instead of yogurt
1 3/4 t vanilla
1/2 t orange oil (I used Boyajian)

250 grams (2 c plus 3 T) all purpose flour
250 grams (1 1/4 c) granulated sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 salt
zest from 2 oranges
200 grams (14 T) unsalted butter, at room temp

Preheat oven to 350 and put the oven rack on the bottom third of the oven. Spray your 10 c bundt cake pan with a baking spray with flour (I love the Spectrum Organics brand). I use this Nordic Ware 'Heritage' pan. It is wonderful. It's heavy and the sharp edges make the most beautiful cakes...no frosting or other embellishment is needed.

Cake instructions (also adapted from Rose's sour cream cakes method - no alternating of mixing in the milk and flour - it's the best!):

In a small/medium bowl, mix together: eggs, egg yolk, 1/4 of the yogurt, vanilla, orange oil, set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment to combine the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, orange zest. Add the softened butter and remaining yogurt. Mix on low until combined, scrape down, and then increase speed to med-high for 90 seconds to two minutes.

Add the egg-yogurt mixture in two parts, mixing on low until combined and then on med-high for about 30-40 seconds after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl when adding the eggs.

Spoon about 2/3 of the batter into the bundt pan, then create a 'well' into which you can spoon the filling. Spoon in the streusel filling in, and then gently spoon over the remaining batter. Smooth the batter with a small offset spatula being careful not to mix up the streusel mixture.

Bake for 45-50 minutes (mine was done at 48 minutes), until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan, on a rack, for 8 minutes, then turn out onto your serving plate and let cool completely (or...if you're like me, eat while still warm).

The cake came out really well. It had a really light crumb and the filling was a delicious mix of nuts, sugar, and spices. I'll definitely make this one again. Enjoy!

ingredients for the streusel filling. Use whatever spices you like best.

mise en place for the cake

I used some of my homemade vanilla extract

the batter with the dry ingredients, plus butter and yogurt...

and now the egg-yogurt mixture added in...smooth!

about 2/3 of the batter is scooped into the pan

then the streusel filling is added

add the remaining batter...

and carefully smooth over the filling

I love the edges that this bundt pan creates

this is a little smooshed because I was too impatient to let it
cool completely before slicing...but tasted delicious!

Bye for now...

A Homemade Christmas 2011, part 1: Vanilla Extract

This post is part one of four in my Homemade Christmas 2011 series. I hope to add to this series next year with new craft projects.

Part 2: Lavender Aromatherapy Eye Pillows
Part 3: It's a Cookie Decorating Party!
Part 4: Aromatherapy Body Butters & Scrubs

meow!

I love baking! (You're visiting my baking blog, so that's no big surprise, right?) However, I also love dabbling in lots of other creative activities. I took ceramics classes for many years, made my own dipped candles, taught myself how to knit and am always kicking around a few ideas for writing a novel. This Christmas I decided I wanted to make (most of) the presents my husband and I would give at the holidays.

As I've gotten older, I feel like I need less and less "stuff" around the house and so - while I still love to spoil my nieces and nephew - I thought it would be fun to give homemade gifts this year. Now I just needed a plan...What could I make and who would like what?!

First up? Homemade vanilla extract. I knew the extract would need a while to "set up" so I actually started this project last summer. I had made homemade vanilla extract once before, about 20 years ago, when visiting one of my aunts so I knew the basic gist of it (add vanilla beans to vodka and let sit) but wanted more details. I like to gather lots of information whenever I'm trying something new...so off to google I went! There are lots of other people blogging about making vanilla extract but The Italian Dish was the best make-your-own-extract blog post I found. The photos on that site are wonderful and the blog is really well laid out. Her recommendations for buying the vanilla beans and the bottles were also excellent. Both were of great quality but also very inexpensive!

For vanilla beans, visit Beanilla. I bought the Bourbon vanilla beans, but they sell eight(!) different varieties. I got the 1/2 pound pack which was less than $30. This is an amazing value! For comparison, Beanilla sells a single vanilla bean for $1.25...in a grocery store you'd usually pay about $9.00 for 2 beans and the difference in quality is like night and day. My Beanilla beans were soft, pliable and smelled absolutely incredible. Grocery store vanilla beans are often hard and dry and stuck on that bent in half position when you take them out of the bottle. I highly recommend Beanilla for all your vanilla bean needs.

my fresh, delicious vanilla beans. One went straight into my bag of sugar!

The other great recommendation from the Italian Dish was for Specialty Bottle (which you'll see also came in very handy for part four of this Homemade Christmas series). I love wrapping presents and presenting things in pretty and fun packaging, so this site was another fantastic find. For my vanilla extract I used both tall, square bottles (8.5 oz) and short, round bottles (4 oz). The bottles were so cheap too - $1.38 each for the tall ones and .67 cents for the short ones...such a bargain (cap was included)!

my adorable glass bottles, all ready to be filled

All I needed now was the vodka and I was ready to get started. This was such an easy project and when finished, the bottles looked really impressive (quite professional too). Next year I'd like to try some flavored oils: herbs, hot peppers, garlic...yum!

I'm definitely going to need a funnel for this part!

I counted out my vanilla beans then ran the tip of a paring knife down the length of each bean to split them. For each of the tall bottles I used 3 beans; for the small bottles I used 2 beans, cut in half (split them first before cutting).

that was easy!

so cute all lined up together

the short ones...

...and the tall

I put them back in the delivery box (which had cardboard divider sleeves) for storage and then put them away in my pantry. Every couple of weeks I'd pull them out and gently turn the boxes upside-down a couple of times to mix the extract. Six months later...voila, real, homemade vanilla extract. Exciting!

They turned out a gorgeous, rich amber color with a few little vanilla seeds resting on the bottom of the bottles. Gorgeous! And, the smell of the extract was just incredible. Words don't really suffice to convey the fragrant, sweet, floral scent. Heavenly, really.

To finish, I simply typed up some labels (rotating the font sideways), added a border and printed. I thought a rectangle shape would be more elegant than the label's normal rounded corners so I finished by trimming the label around the border's edge. For the wrapping "paper" I wanted something that went with the "to be used in the kitchen" theme so I used several layers of cheese cloth and secured it with a ribbon.

very impressive!

The front of each label says:

homemade
VANILLA EXTRACT

2011


The back of each label says:

This vanilla extract has been steeping for 6 months. It contains vodka and bourbon vanilla beans. Bourbon beans have a creamy, sweet, smooth and mellow flavor.

When your bottle runs low, simply add more unflavored vodka and you will never run out of delicious vanilla extract.

Merry Christmas

Bye for now...