Friday, April 11, 2014

Coffee Cake Follow Up-- Fancy, Big Girl Style


Last week I gave you B's new muffin recipe. Well, sometimes, you may be craving something a bit more than muffins! So today we will talk about how easy it is to turn this muffin recipe (and many other muffin recipes) into a coffee cake version for more of an adult presentation.

To start, like all of these recipes, this is a version of something that looks and for the most part tastes like a coffee cake. This may not be like the ones you buy at the store but it is close!

The first step is altering the initial recipe. For the sake of ease, let's use last week's recipe which is here. You really do not have to do much, in fact you don't have to change it at all. But in my opinion (take that for what it is, haha), there are a few things that you can do to make this more like a traditional coffee cake.

One thing you can do is, instead of just using a cup of unaltered berries, is to dice them into small pieces (even the blueberries-- I cut them into fourths), put them in a separate bowl, add 2 Tbsp of white sugar/cane sugar, blend, and let them sit in the fridge for an hour or so before starting the rest of the recipe. When you prepare the recipe, simply add this mixture instead of unaltered berries. OR, for better results, you could cook this mixture (berry mixture) down in a saucepan until it becomes more like a syrup and then when you get to the spot in the recipe for the berries, add the syrup that you made.

The other thing you can do, either by itself or in addition to the alteration above, is to add a coffee cake-like topping. This is super easy and adds a nice sweet crumb topping. All you need is 4 parts brown sugar (or coconut sugar) to 4 parts flour to 3 parts shortening (or butter, or coconut oil or coconut manna).

Translation for this recipe?

In a small bowl, blend:
4 Tbsp brown sugar (same thing as 1/4 cup)
4 Tbsp of safe flour
3 Tbsp of shortening (I used palm)

The mixture should be crumb-like. Once ingredients are blended together, set aside. Prepare the rest of your recipe according to the instructions and pour into prepared pan. Ensure that the to of batter is relatively smooth. Using your fingers, sprinkle crumbs over top of batter until entire top is completely covered. Bake according to original recipe instructions. You may want to peek in on it a bit more frequently to ensure that the topping does not burn. If the topping does start to appear like it will burn before the cake is done, you can do a few different things. (1) make sure that the cake is closest to the center of the oven and the top isn't too close to the heating element, (2) cover the cake with foil (being careful not to disturb the topping), (3) decrease the oven temperature and increase your baking time to correspond.

You could also do these alterations and simply keep the recipe as muffins. I decided to make a coffee cake version because it had been five years since I had one of those yummy bakery coffee cakes and for whatever reason, I woke up with a craving and decided I was going to make one. ;) Enjoy your "adult" Sunday breakfast treat and if you can have coffee with your coffee cake, drink an extra cup for B, C, and I!!

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