Monday, July 25, 2011

"better than starbucks coffee cake"

Its official. I'm a stress baker (basically, I bake when I'm stressed instead of exercising, or eating, or cleaning, for example).
So out of my stress, I made a ton of coffee cake from the lovely vanilla sugar blog in the middle of the night, and now, 12 hours later all the coffee cake is gone.





This recipe isn't really that difficult, but there are a bunch of steps so its better if you actually do the whole thing the right way (so actually sift the flour... don't get lazy on me).

Ingredients:
topping-
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup melted, warm unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
optional- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

cake-
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 tbsp softened unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup fat free greek yogurt
1/2 cup cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
optional- 2 cups fresh blueberries (or chocolate chips... or both!)

First preheat the oven to 350 F (with the rack in the center of the oven). Butter the sides of a 9 by 13 inch glass pan (or slightly larger)

Make the really delicious crumbly topping-
In a big bowl, whisk together the three types of sugar, salt and cinnamon. Once combined, add the melted butter and whisk that some more. Finally, fold in the flour (I folded mine in 3rds). Then set that to the side. (Add chopped walnuts if you'd like at this point!)

Make the super awesome moist cake-
In a little bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.
In another little bowl mix together the greek yogurt and cream until smooth (I probably went a little more yogurt than cream so closer to a cup of yogurt and 1/4 cup cream). Next, in a big bowl, beat the softened butter with an electric mixer until its nice and smooth. Then add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Next, beat the eggs into the batter one by one. Finally, blend in the yogurt mixture and vanilla. Add the flour in 3rds, beating until incorporated before adding the next third.

Assemble your cake!
Pour the batter in the cake pan spread it evenly with a spatula or spoon or whatever you fancy. Then, if you choose to add blueberries (I did half and half) press 1 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries into the batter (or 3/4 cup on half the pan if you do half and half like I did). Use your fist to create big chunks of topping and break those chunks into smaller chunks over your cake until all you see are chunks of topping. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of blueberries over the crumb topping if you are making a blueberry version (just squeeze them in between chunks). Don't worry if your topping looks thick! It should be!

Stick the whole thing in the oven and bake for 50-55 minutes (rotating the whole pan every 15 minutes or so) or until a knife comes out clean and the pieces of cake that rose through the topping are golden brown.
Let it cool for about 30 minutes and enjoy!

And now all your stress should be gone :)