Monday, May 4, 2009

Virtual Bake Sale: Marian's Fantastic Sour Cream Coffee Cake

This post is in honor of I'll Eat You's Blogiversary - they're having a virtual bake sale in aid of The World Food Program, a lovely idea and a very appropriate cause. (Food bloggers, join in!)

Here's where to donate - it would be great if you could. (If you do, please could you mention my blog in the comments section on that page, so they'll know where you came from - thanks!)

(And thanks to Bob from Cooking Stuff for passing the bake sale info along.)

And now, the actual post:

The other day, with the oven still warm from the cheese souffle, a crazy thought popped into my mind: what the hell, let's try that coffee cake recipe too. My first cake.

And a bit of magic happened - this came out perfectly as well!

Light and fluffy, moist and sweet, with a wonderful smell that filled the whole apartment. Even the cats were trying to get at it.

The Recipe: Marian's Fantastic Sour Cream Coffee Cake

One of those rare things - a real family recipe, passed around the country and the world. Marian lived next door to my aunt's family in Canada, and my mum got it from them. She hasn't made it since we were children (many years ago...) but it was just as fabulous as I remembered it.

Halved the recipe below, because we only have one 8x8 inch pan, but we could easily have eaten the whole thing.

  • 1.25 cups brown sugar
  • 1.5 tbspn cinnamon
  • 0.75 cup butter [i.e. 1.5 sticks, or 6 oz - thanks to Spoonful of Sugar's handy conversion table]
  • 1.5 cups sugar [wasn't sure what they meant, so used granulated - or perhaps it was superfine]
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 1.5 tspn vanilla extract
  • 2.5 cups all purpose flour
  • 3 tspn baking powder
  • 0.75 tspn salt
  • 10 fl oz sour cream & 1.5 tspn baking soda, mixed together
  • 0.25-0.5 cup milk

2 8x8 inch pans, or 1 9x13 inch pan, greased and lined. [Mine was silicone, so didn't do anything to it.]

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Make the topping: in a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. [Didn't have enough brown sugar, so used some raw sugar too - it actually worked really well, gave it a nice crunch.]

3. Make the batter: in a separate large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, beaten eggs, and vanilla extract. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the sour cream and baking soda mixture. Add between 0.25 and 0.5 cup milk (the mixture should be fairly thick).

4. Put a layer of batter in the pan, and cover with about 3/4 of the topping [I did about 2/3]. Cover with remaining batter, then remaining topping. Swirl with a knife (like marble cake). [Never having made marble cake, wasn't quite sure what this meant, but just swirled away.]

5. Bake for about 45-50 mins. [Ours was ready at 40 mins.]

Thoughts/Tips/Mistakes

Can't rave about this cake enough - it was really gorgeous. And it's obviously foolproof!

(Ooh, I tell you though, dividing everything in half made my head hurt.)

Pix

Batter:















Topping:















Out of the oven:















A side view:















From the front:

















4 comments:

Bob said...

Ooooo, that looks good. Sour cream coffee cake is the bomb. And if the cats are trying to get it, it must be good. ;)

I had a silicon bundt pan for a while, but I didn't like the way it browned (as in, it didn't brown things). How do you like yours?

Yesica N. Cook said...

Thanks! Though the cats will actually eat anything, it seems (coffee grounds?!!)

Didn't really notice the browning - too amazed that it had actually worked. But I think it was fine... Will pay more attention next time. I loved how easy it was to get the cake out of the pan.

Thinglet said...

Hey! I'd forgotten all about that cake - yum! Must make it too!

jack said...

yuuuum. this was so good that the second batch became a mother's day gift!