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...

Heavenly Cake Baker: Lemon Poppy Seed Sour Cream Cake

The Heavenly Cake Baker club is over now, but I still frequently bake from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Rose's Heavenly Cakes cookbook. Her recipes are very straightforward and always delicious. She also has a great method (read: easy) for making cakes. You combine the dry ingredients, add the butter and part of the sour cream, beat for a couple of minutes to create air in the batter, then add the eggs and remainder of sour cream and then beat. So much easier than the old alternating the dry and wet ingredients, starting/ending with the dry.

So, back to this cake...although I am not a huge fan of poppyseeds, I've been wanting to try to make a poppyseed cake for a while, so who better to turn to than Rose? I have memories of my mother making some sort of lemon poppyseed pound cake when I was younger so maybe that is why I wanted to try this recipe? Well, regardless of the reason I felt compelled to bake it, this Lemon Poppy Seed Sour Cream Cake was fantastic.

Even though it had a lovely light lemony flavor (and I even added lemon oil, not called for in the recipe), I would probably add some freshly squeezed lemon juice next time to punch up the lemon flavor a bit. I would also cut back on the poppyseeds slightly. The recipe also called for lemon syrup to be brushed on after baking...which I skipped. So I would definitely make the syrup next time and this might also help with the lemon flavor.

mise en place

oops, I accidentally started by beating the butter...no worries, I'll just mix
the dry ingredients in another bowl and then add to my mixer bowl

here we go, the dry ingredients mixed and added back to the mixer bowl

in goes 1/2 c of the sour cream

the butter and most of the sour cream are mixed in and beaten for 90 seconds
and then the remaining wet ingredients are added

and done...into the pan!

so pretty and smells great

a slice for the chef

delicious!

Bye for now...

4th of July - the dessert table!

We had a small afternoon party to celebrate July 4th. Here are some photos from the dessert table. I made the July ABC, Classic Fruit Tart, for the party. I also made one of my favorite cakes, Golden Lemon Almond Cake, a strawberry-blueberry fruit salad, some watermelon and a delicious fruit platter courtesy of mom.

the stars and stripes

a patriotic watermelon

I like to mix fresh strawberries and blueberries with a sprinkle of sugar,
some vanilla and then add some champagne or a bit of liquor...
chambord (black raspberry), framboise (raspberry) or cointreau (orange)
all work well

so pretty

and delicious!

I made some whipped cream and mixed it with the raspberry sauce

yummy!

time to dig in

juicy watermelon

my mom brought this amazing fruit platter. The pineapple was so juicy and delicious.

Bye for now...

Golden Lemon Almond Cake

I originally made this fabulous Golden Lemon Almond Cake last year and it was so delicious that I've made it about four times since then. The recipe comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Rose's Heavenly Cakes and was part of my Heavenly Cake Baker baking ring from 2011. I highly recommend this cookbook. While I joined the HCBers late so didn't make every recipe in the book, the cakes that I did make all turned out beautifully. Plus, the book itself is gorgeous - lots of color photographs, clear directions and helpful hints.

I made the Golden Lemon Almond Cake again for a party we had on July 4th and, once again, it was fantastic.

This cake is so simple to make because you don't have to do the standard alternating dry and wet ingredients. You just mix the dry ingredients together then add the butter and most of the sour cream and mix that together. Finally, you add the remaining wet ingredients and that's it! After the cake is baked you brush on a sweet and tart lemon syrup - so delicious! The cake has a wonderful body - substantial but not heavy or dense and the ground nuts give the cake both its amazing flavor and also keep it really moist.

I made a delicious raspberry sauce (also from the Heavenly Cakes cookbook) to serve with the cake. It would be equally yummy served with a lemon whipped cream or just plain.

mise en place

use a heavy-duty pan with funky edges and your cake will have
gorgeous lines and a golden brown crust

blanched, sliced almonds are toasted to a golden brown and then ground

after the nuts are mostly ground, the lemon zest and part of the sugar are added
and pulsed some more

I could just eat this mixture on its own

the flour mixture, the remaining sugar and nut zest mixture are added
to the bowl of a stand mixture and mixed to combine

the butter and most of the sour cream are added to the dry ingredients and are beaten

the wet ingredients are combined and then added to the dry

more than doubled in volume...it's a gorgeous batter!

in the close up you can see the little bits of ground almonds

ready to be baked

making the syrup...so delicious

done and cooled

so gorgeous and the smell - the lemons and almonds - is amazing

the lemon-sugar syrup gets brushed on what will be the bottom

the turbinado sugar in the syrup give the cake a
sparkly appearance and a sweet crunch

can't wait for the party so I can try a slice

Here is the raspberry sauce I made to serve with the cake. The first time I made this sauce it was also for an HCB cake, Moist Chocolate Raspberry Génoise. This sauce is so incredibly delicious. Sweet, a little tart from the lemon juice and very, very raspberry-ish (is that a word?). I could, literally, just drink it. In fact, it would be delicious in a martini or other cocktail or even just added to some plain soda water. Oh, I am getting so many ideas on how to eat this sauce!

just three ingredients - lemon juice, sugar and frozen raspberries

the raspberries are thawed and the released juices get...

...boiled down to a few tablespoons

the thawed raspberries are then pressed through the strainer (or foodmill)
to collect their "pureed" juices

the finished sauce

Bye for now...