Archive for the ‘Coffee Cake’ Category
Strawberries are not always an easy fruit to bake with because they lose some of their texture when they’re in the oven. One way around this is to puree your strawberries and then incorporate the puree into whatever you’re baking – just as I did in these Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins. The light pink muffins are packed with fresh strawberry and topped off with a generous layer of streusel topping. They’re the perfect coffee cake to enjoy on a spring or summer morning.
The muffins pack a lot of strawberry flavor into a little package, with a whole cup of strawberry puree right in the batter. They’re soft and moist, with a tight crumb that is strong enough to support the buttery brown sugar and vanilla streusel that tops them off. The fresh strawberries naturally color these muffins. I used egg whites rather than whole eggs in this recipe because the yellow of the yolks will actually give the muffins an orangey, rather than a pink, hue and I wanted that natural color to come through as much as possible. I’ve had a lot of strawberry baked goods, but the combination of strawberry and streusel topping has got to be near the top of my list of favorites because it is absolutely delicious.
I used a generous amount of streusel to finish these off. It is sweet from all the brown sugar, but I added a pinch of salt that balances that sweetness and makes it “pop” next to the tender muffin. If you find that you have extra streusel, just pile it even higher and do your best to get it all on top of the muffin. If any streusel tumbles off while baking, you can just consider the crispy crumbs to be an edible bonus for the baker!
I used fresh strawberries to make my puree and highly recommend that you do the same. If you only have frozen berries, you need to defrost them completely and drain them well before pureeing them. The frozen berries likely contain extra water (at least from being defrosted) and that can water down the strawberry flavor of your muffins. These muffins will keep well in an airtight container for at least a day or two, so you could easily make them the day before you want to serve them if you want to bake ahead.
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The next time that you want to bake an over-the-top cake for a brunch or other special occasion, you should definitely put this Cream Cheese Stuffed Banana Bundt Cake at the top of your list. The name alone should be enough to inspire you to give this cake a try, and it just might replace regular banana bread in your house when you have overripe bananas sitting around. The cake is a moist, tender banana cake that has thick ribbon of cream cheese filling running throughout. It is much like having the frosting inside of a cupcake – but even better.
Cream cheese always pairs well with bananas, whether you are spreading a little on top of a piece of banana bread or topping off a banana layer cake. The tanginess of the cream cheese is a nice contrast for the natural sweetness of a banana, and this cake is no exception. The cream cheese filling is lightly sweetened and it has the texture of a fluffy cheesecake, not of a heavy cream cheese frosting, and it adds enough flavor to make this cake dangerously addictive. The cake itself has a tight and soft crumb that is reminiscent of pound cake. It has just the right amount of cinnamon and nutmeg to add some depth to the cake while still letting all of the flavor of the banana come through. On the whole, the cake isn’t too sweet and it has just the right balance of sweet banana, spices and tangy cream cheese.
If you want to make this cake even more decadent, you can add some mini chocolate chips into the cream cheese filling or a handful of chopped nuts into the banana cake. It would be just as delicious with those variations as it is on its own. This cake looks beautiful when it is baked in a bundt pan, however it can also be baked in a tube pan (which is what I used for the cake in the photo above) and you will still get great results. The baking time is the same between the two types of pans, the only real difference is that the finished cake will have a slightly different shape to it.
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My lemon trees are nearly falling over with fruit right now, since we are in the peak of citrus season. Fresh citrus always gives me lots of inspiration in the kitchen, because a little bit of juice or zest can really perk up a dish. This Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake is just one of my most recent ways to put some of those lemons to good use. The lemony cake packs a double dose of lemon for citrus-lovers. It has both fresh lemon juice and lemon zest in the cake batter, and more lemon juice and zest in the streusel topping.
The cake is has a lovely lemon flavor to it, with a hint of butter from the buttermilk that is also in the cake batter. It isn’t as strong a lemon flavor as you might get from a batch of lemon curd, but it is more than enough to make the cake taste like springtime. The hint of lemon in the crispy streusel topping is a nice finishing touch to the cake – and a very nice change of pace from more common cinnamon streusel-topped cakes.
I used meyer lemons in this cake, which are less acidic than your average lemons are. This means that they are less sour, but still have a strong lemon flavor. You can substitute regular lemons into this recipe without changing anything – you will still get a bright lemon flavor and the cake will still be sweet enough. I highly recommend sticking with fresh lemon juice and zest, rather than bottled juice, for the best flavor, though. Also, to get the most out of your lemons, be sure to zest them before juicing them, as it is a little more difficult to get a microplane across the skin of a lemon that has already been juiced!
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A fluffy cinnamon bun that is packed with a sweet, buttery filling and topped off with just the right amount of sticky glaze is a breakfast treat that is just about irresistible. Cinnamon buns can be a lot of work to make, however, since you need to prepared a yeast dough and there are several steps that include rolling and re-rolling the dough just to shape them. This Cinnamon Bun Bread recipe is one of my favorite twists on a cinnamon bun because you get all the same flavors as you find in a traditional bun – but without any of that work.
This Banana Cinnamon Bun Coffee Cake is a twist on that basic bread that includes a little bit of banana to give the dough a little more flavor and make the coffee cake a little more unique – while keeping that cinnamon bun-inspired tastiness. The dough is an easy to make yeast dough that includes mashed banana, cinnamon and ground nutmeg. It doesn’t have to be kneaded once it is all mixed together, just poured into a prepared pan and left to rise while you prepare the topping mixture.
The topping is a mixture of butter, cinnamon, flour and spices, with a pinch of salt added just for contrast. It looks very much like the crumble mixture that you might put on top of a classic coffee cake. In this recipe, however, it is swirled and folded into the yeast dough to spread that sweetness throughout the coffee cake and make sure every bite has some cinnamon flavor. I always make sure that a little extra is sprinkled on top before baking, too.
The finished bread has a light, tender texture and that combination of butter and cinnamon that we always associate with cinnamon buns. The nutmeg and banana come through, as well, but are a little more subtle in the presence of that cinnamon and brown sugar topping. The bread is great on its own and can also be finished with a little drizzle of glaze (the recipe is given below, although I did not glaze this slice of cake) to give it the right amount of stickiness. I serve this both for breakfast and dessert, and since it is a no-knead yeast recipe, I find that it can fit into my schedule any time of day.
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Coffee cakes typically get their name from the fact that they are served with coffee, not because they have coffee in them. This Coffee Swirl Coffee Cake is an exception to that rule because it not only goes with coffee, but it has coffee baked right into it! This is a bundt cake that looks similar to many other bundt-style coffee cakes, but delivers a beautiful coffee swirl at its center, rather than the cinnamon-sugar or streusel centers that are so much more common. For a coffee lover, this cake could easily become a brunch favorite.
The base for this cake is a very moist vanilla cake made with plain greek yogurt. The Greek yogurt really helps keep the cake moist, and gives it a nice neutral flavor that the vanilla can really stand out against. You can actually use either nonfat or full fat greek yogurt and get a good result both ways, but you can also substitute sour cream into this recipe too for a similar effect. The light-colored cake is sweet enough to balance out the strong flavor of the coffee that you get in the dramatic, dark swirl in the center of the cake.
For the coffee swirl, I recommend using a strong instant espresso or Starbucks Via for the mixture to give it a really distinct coffee flavor. You want that coffee to really stand out, and the vanilla cake can handle the contrast. You can use instant coffee instead for a milder flavor. A hint of cocoa powder brings out some of the cocoa notes in the coffee, which keeps it from seeming too intense, too. The coffee swirl mixture is dry and crumbly, so be sure that it gets surrounded by cake batter when you incorporate it into the cake. It will form a kind of swirl as the cake bakes, and create a beautiful finished look with minimal effort from you.
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