Battle of the Coffee Cakes

We’ve been on a bit of a coffee cake kick over here in the Recipe Box Project kitchen lately. Whether it’s for friends in town visiting, hosting a weekend brunch, or just for ourselves as a weekday morning treat, coffee cake is one of those things that takes a normal morning from ho-hum to spectacular… something that’s particularly important when you’re starting month four of Extremely Early Mornings thanks to a Puppy Who Sleeps All Day and Wakes Up at the Crack of Dawn.*

coffee cake #1

I’ve made three coffee cakes in the last month, but I’m gonna try to drop them on you gradually so I don’t overwhelm you with too many breakfast options at once. So here are two lovely ones to start with: The first one is an easy recipe—one bowl, no weird ingredients (unless you’re like me and realise halfway through making it that you don’t have enough milk. Facepalm.), and best of all, no fruit to prep. The crumb on this one was spectacular—dense but still fluffy, soft and pillowy but still crumbly, the perfect combination of cake and breakfast bread. But that description does nothing to prepare you for the amazing crust. You guys, the crust on this is so spectacular. I mean, you’ve got cake batter, you’ve covered it in melted butter, and then you sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon and just enough flour to make it come together and cook it on high? It’s perfect. Crispy and spicy with just enough crunch to make you excited for that top layer, even a day after it’s made.

coffee cake #1

Coffee cake #1

The other one involves prepping some apples (peeling and chopping very finely), but otherwise also nice and simple, one bowl, and a sticky-sweet, toasty topping bursting with apple flavour. This one looks perfect in its pan but even better popped out of it; it stands tall and fluffy and looks amazing on a cake stand served up at a brunch. Best on the first day, when the topping is still that perfect balance of crispy and sticky, but it still tastes great on day two or three.

Coffee cake #2

Judson and I have been passing an irritatingly long-lasting summer cold back and forth for awhile, so I didn’t feel comfortable sharing these cakes with anyone, just in case… which ended up being even better because, well, more for us! Plus, what better motivation is there for getting out of bed on a morning when you’re still battling the world’s most lingering cold than the promise of a warm slice of coffee cake, a hot cup of coffee, and a sunshine-filled Scotland day? Also, they freeze beautifully, so make one of each and pop half in the freezer for your next busy week.

*This time of year, the sun literally rises in Edinburgh around 4:30am, so when I say crack of dawn, I mean MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

Coffee Cake #2

Coffee Cake #2

The verdict:
COffee Cake 1: Quick & easy plush coffee cake

5 spoons out of five. This is an amazing breakfast treat, and probably you should make it to help get you through this week. Seriously, make this coffee cake ASAP. I opted to leave mine in the cake pan for a more rustic (read: lazy) approach, but you could just as easily line the pan with paper and remove it to serve on a platter. Or make it as cupcakes. Or bake it in a springform pan so you can just remove the ring and serve!

coffee cake 2: Sticky-Toasty apple coffee Cake

4 spoons out of five. This cake is great, but it's slightly more work than the first one (due to the apples) and its much better on day 1 than day 2, so I subtracted a spoon for both of those.

one year ago: White cake with creamy chocolate frosting
Two years ago: Mandarin Barbecue chicken

The recipe:

Quick & Easy Plush Coffee Cake

the directions:

Preheat oven to 200C/400F and grease a 9-inch cake pan.
Sift 2 c flour once, then measure.
Add baking powder, salt, and ½ c sugar, then sift again.
Cut in 6 tbsp butter.
Beat egg and milk together, then add to flour mixture, stirring until blended.
Turn into prepared pan and spread evenly (mixture will be thick).
Melt remaining 1 ½ tbsp butter and brush over batter in pan.
Mix together remaining 4 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp flour, and cinnamon (and cardamom, if using).
Bake 15-20 minutes until pick inserted in middle comes out clean.

the ingredients:

2 c + 1 tbsp flour
2 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
½ c + 4 tbsp sugar, divided
7 ½ tbsp butter, divided
1 egg, beaten well
½ c milk
½ tsp cinnamon

Optional: ¼ tsp ground cardamom

---

The recipe:

Sticky-Toasty Apple Coffee Cake

The directions:

Grease a springform or 8x10 square pan. 
Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Sift together flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt & baking powder.
Cut shortening into dry ingredients until it looks like cornmeal
Add eggs & milk then stir until smooth.
Pour into prepared pan and cover with apples.
Sprinkle with brown sugar (up to 1/3 c depending on tartness of your apples and your taste).
Bake 20-30 minutes until well-brown on top and a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

the ingredients:

2 c flour
3/4 c sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 c shortening or Stork
3 eggs
1 c milk
1 c apples, peeled & chopped finely
1/4 to 1/3 c brown sugar (to taste)

Italian Walnut Cake

Here’s a fun fact you can remind yourself next time you think I’m cool: my first job was at the local public library and I loved it. All I did was shelve books for 10 hours a week (at $5.93/hour), but I worked with the coolest group of people and I loved the hell out of that job. Anyway, one day I was complaining to the youngest person on the full-time staff (and possibly the coolest person I’ve ever known) about not knowing what to write a paper for my AP European History about, and she said ‘duh, Eurovision.’

Knowing nothing about this, I asked her if that was a TV channel and was duly educated: Eurovision is a song contest that happens every year in Europe where each country sends their best act to sing against all the other countries to win… I’m pretty sure they just win bragging rights and maybe the right to hold the next Eurovision in their own country? I can’t remember if I ended up writing the paper on Eurovision- in a world without Youtube, finding performances to watch stateside was a drag, but I couldn’t stop reading about it; I was hooked.

If you’re not familiar, there’s a whole sea of weird nuances to Eurovision that I don’t think a transplant to this continent can ever really grasp, but it’s like a game of Risk trying to figure out who will vote for who; each country gets points to allocate to each act but they all vote based on politics and past events, not actual merit, so the whole thing is a bit of a joke. France always takes it super seriously, but most other countries play up the camp value and know the whole thing is a bit of a joke. I always feel bad for the countries you know are going to lose (coughRussiacough) just because no one likes them, and there’s all these rules about not including anything political in your songs- but last year the Ukraine sneaked in a pretty political song and still won, so this year they hosted and it was awesome.

Judson and I planned a night in around Eurovision on Saturday night: a cheese & charcuterie plate with representation from as many countries as we could think of, cocktails from Italy and Russia, printed ballots to allocate our own points to, fully-charged phones to live-tweet as needed. It was a blast- we stayed up until the wee hours screaming at the TV when the points weren't going in our favour, snacking on all kinds of treats and snuggling with the dog when things were boring. Moldova should have won but they were totally robbed, but it was still a blast and I'm already counting down the weeks until Eurovision 2018 in Portugal.

We may have overindulged on the Moscow Mules a bit, though- this morning was a little rough so I was glad I thought ahead and prepped this Italian Walnut Cake for us to munch on this morning with our (very hot, very black) coffee. A little hair of the dog and all that. I know I'm always over here promoting the idea of cake-for-breakfast, and while I don't regret it, I also don't want it to be assumed that all I eat is cake. However, I really don't know what else you'd do with this cake. It's not sweet enough to be really desirable as a dessert, and it's too hearty to be served after a meal. Rum notwithstanding, the rest of the ingredients are basically the same as what you'd put into a breakfast bread, so I stand by having it for breakfast- especially on the morning after a celebration of all things European like we had this weekend.

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. It kicked our hangovers in the teeth and had us feeling better by lunchtime, but it was a bit dry and falls into that 'not-sweet-enough-for-dessert-but-sweet-enough-that-I-feel-guilty-eating-it-for-breakfast' category. It's definitely an old-fashioned type of cake, the sort of thing that would probably be great to make next time you have family coming to visit.

One year ago: Fried Chicken & German Potato Salad
two years ago: Oatmeal Toffee Lace Cookies (still a favourite in the RBP kitchen!) 

the recipe:

Italian Walnut Cake

the directions:

Grease a 9-inch round layer cake pan with 1 tbsp (14 g) of the butter.
Place oven rack in the bottom half of the oven and preheat to 175C/350F.
Chop walnuts very fine but do not reduce to a paste, then set aside.
Sift together flour & baking powder, then set aside.
Beat remaining butter and sugar.
Add egg, rum and lemon zest to sugar mixture and beat until blended.
Stir in the walnuts, a little at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Gradually stir in the flour mixture, mixing thoroughly.
Turn into prepared pan, leveling the top with a spatula.
Bake until a wooden pick inserted in the centre comes out clean and cake is well-browned, about 35-40 minutes.
Place on a wire rack in the pan for 10 minutes before loosening edges and turning out, then allow to cool completely right side up.
Store overnight in a tightly sealed airtight container to allow the flavours to come together completely before serving.

the ingredients:

½ c (113 g) butter, softened
8 oz walnuts
1 c flour, sifted
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2/3 c sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp rum
1 tbsp lemon zest

Whipped Cream Cake

‘Is it time for another cake recipe yet?’ you ask.

Yes. Always. Especially when that cake is as acceptable for breakfast as it is for dessert, decked out with fresh seasonal fruit and the simplest, most perfect cloud of softly whipped cream topping it all off. There are no multiple layers here to frost between; no dividing the batter between pans or washing your mixer just so you can dirty it by making frosting for your cake five minutes after you put the cake in the oven, and most importantly: it’s delicious.

I’m thinking you’ll probably do the same thing as I did with this cake, which is snooze on it because, I mean, it’s a white cake that doesn’t even have proper frosting. But don’t let a day go by before you make this cake. It’s seriously that good.

Let me explain to you how delicious this cake is: when I made it, the center puffed up in the oven such that it wasn’t flat on top and was going to look strange topped with whipped cream, so I sliced the top of so that it would be flat. But the thin shavings that I sliced off were so good, Judson and I were even fighting over them.

This cake is so rich and plush, I could eat it plain with a hot cup of coffee, or bedecked with whipped cream (as shown here), or with yogurt (for breakfast! Done that too), or with heaps of chopped berries (strawberries in their juice! Also tried it that way). I’d even hazard a guess it would be great with a drizzle of ganache topping the whipped cream or a puff of mascarpone in place of the whipped cream, but regardless, it’s not going to let you down. This is the perfect cake to make just now, when all the berries are in season and ready to go- it’s a simple cake that you won’t feel too guilty about, perfect for bringing to your next brunch party.

It’s the kind of thing I imagine Eleanor making on a Friday to enjoy over the weekend with friends stopping by for a morning cup of coffee, and the type of thing that makes me wish I took more time for reading the newspaper on weekend mornings instead of waking up early to take the dog out and then promptly falling asleep with her on my chest on the couch in the sun. I’m always looking for recipes simple enough to crank out on a weeknight and this one definitely fits the bill- in fact, I’m making it again this weekend to enjoy while I recover from Eurovision.

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. The cake as made gets 5 spoons, but I’m knocking one off because the whipped cream topping means you really need to eat this within 36 hours of making it for it to be at its best.

One year ago: Fried Chicken & German Potato Salad
Two years ago: Green Salad with Toasted Sesame Vinaigrette

The recipe:

Whipped Cream Cake

The directions:

Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Grease and flour an 8-inch springform pan.
Sift together flour, 1 c sugar, baking powder and salt, then set aside.
Whip 1 c cream until it holds soft peaks.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir in vanilla gently.
Add flour mixture and stir until well-blended.
Pour into prepared pan and bake 40-50 minutes until light golden brown and a wooden pick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Let stand in pan 5 minutes after removing from oven, then remove sides of springform and set cake on wire rack to cool completely.
Once cake is completely cooled, whip remaining 1 c cream with 1 tbsp sugar until soft peaks form.
Pipe or spread onto completely cooled cake and garnish with blueberries, strawberries or any other in-season fruit.

The ingredients:

1 ½ c flour, sifted
1 c + 1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 c whipping cream, divided
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla