Favorite Coffee Cake

Back in the mid-70's, I found this recipe in a Family Circle magazine (I think!)

CAKE:
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of milk*
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 large egg, slightly beaten

Beat everything together and pour into a greased 9-inch round layer cake pan.  Set aside while you prepare the topping (recipe below).

*  I've never tried the following variation, but, ...IF you use buttermilk in place of regular milk, read this first and proceed accordingly:

"If you want to substitute 1 cup of buttermilk for the sweet milk, blend 1/2 teaspoon of BAKING SODA into the flour and use only 1/2 teaspoons of  BAKING  POWDER. 


In other words, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda plus 1 cup of buttermilk (or an equivalent) can replace about 2 teaspoons of the baking powder."

TOPPING:
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons firm butter

Mix/cut all topping ingredients together until crumbly and then evenly sprinkle this topping onto batter and bake in oven at 350-degrees for about 25-30 minutes.

Farmhouse Buttermilk Brown Sugar Cake

Cake:
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Topping:
6 tablespoon melted butter
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup milk
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 to 1 cup diced pecans

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350-degrees. Lightly grease a 9"x13" pan.
2. Beat the butter and brown sugar together until smooth.
3. Add the eggs, beating until smooth.
4. Stir in the buttermilk and vanilla extract.
5. Add the baking soda, salt, and flour to the wet ingredients, beating until thoroughly combined.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
7. Bake the cake for 35 minutes.  Towards the end of the baking time, prepare the topping by following these directions...
8. Stir the melted butter and the sugar together.  Add the milk, pecans, and salt.  The glaze will be thick but pourable.
9. Top the baked cake with the topping, and return to the oven for another 10 minutes. 
10. Remove the cake from the oven.  The topping will look very runny. You can eat the cake hot, with the glaze still gooey, or let the cake sit at room temperature for a few hours, by which time the glaze will have set.
11. Yield:  24 servings.

Berry Coffee Cake*

Above and below:  Coffee Cake with 

BLACKBERRIES (white glaze).

 OR,...

Above and below:  This Coffee Cake made with 

RASPBERRIES and browned butter icing.**

INGREDIENTS for the FILLING:
1 and 1/4 cups frozen fruit (blueberries or blackberries, or raspberries), thawed and well drained.  The frozen raspberries I used were "quite" smoooooshy when they thawed, but I just made sure they were well drained (I then drank that unsweetened juice!).
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup tablespoons granulated sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

INGREDIENTS for the CAKE:
2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
...........
1 and 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 container (8 oz) sour cream

INGREDIENTS for the WHITE GLAZE:
1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 to 4 teaspoons water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease bottom and side of a bundt pan with shortening; lightly flour. (I used the kind of Pam spray that has flour right in it.)  In the "greasing" process, do not miss the "grooves" in the pan.
2. In small bowl, stir together filling ingredients; set aside.
3. Start the batter:  In medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside. 
4. In large bowl, beat 1¼ cups granulated sugar, the butter, vanilla and eggs with electric mixer on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. On low speed, alternately add flour mixture with sour cream, beating just until blended after each addition.
5. Using a tablespoon, put one-third of the batter into the prepared bundt pan, spreading it out evenly (I left a very slight groove in the batter for the fruit filling). 
6. Spoon one-half of the fruit filling onto the batter (using a teaspoon, I put little dabs of this "filling mixture" near the center of the "ring of batter").
7.  Spoon another one-third of the batter (by tablespoonfuls) over fruit filling-- at this point, I used the tip of a knife to carefully spread this second amount of batter over the fruit; 
8. Add the remaining fruit filling as I just explained above. 
9. Spoon the last one-third batter over filling, covering the last layer of fruit filling as I explained above; finally, carefully smooth the top of the last batter layer.
10. Bake 55 to 65 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. (Mine was done in 55 minutes.) Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to cooling rack (or plate, like I did). Cool completely, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.  (To keep cake really moist ahead of putting the icing on, I put this "still warm" coffee cake in an enclosed "cake carrier" and set it in a very chilly area for overnight--  then, this morning, when I carefully removed the cover, I just wiped off any moisture that had accumulated on the surfaces of the cover-- DONE!)
11. In small bowl, mix glaze ingredients until smooth and thin enough to drizzle. Drizzle glaze over cooled coffee cake.

I'm not into having coffee, 

but I surely wouldn't turn 

down a cup of hot cocoa,
 or a glass of cold milk 
to go with either of these!

(Above:  Blackberry version.)

(Above, Raspberry version.)

                                  * Originally, I got this recipe from the Betty Crocker Website.

**DIRECTIONS TO MAKE BROWNED BUTTER GLAZE:

BROWNED BUTTER FROSTING:

Heat ½ (or 1/3?) stick of butter in pan only until golden brown in color (stirring all the while)-- this does NOT take long.  Quickly add about two Tbsp. milk to quickly stop the browning, and then add some SIFTED powdered sugar till you have the amount and consistency of frosting you need. You do not want this to be thick!   It may be necessary to addtiny amounts of more milk to get a smooth texture.   I drizzle this over the bars.  (You have to drizzle this on the cookies quickly before it thickens-- that's why I just line up the baked cookies and go 'back and forth' over their tops.)

Dutch Blueberry Cake*

To pacify my craving for a blueberry SOMEthing,

I made this snack cake!

Blueberry season is almost here... BUT!!!, I was

disappointed to find out the"closest to here" U-Pick 

blueberry farm will NOT be having any U-Pick

blueberries this year!  You can read why at:

http://www.blueberryhaven.net/

As stated, ONLY "already picked" blueberries can be 

ordered ahead of time and will cost $20 per 5-qt.  pail.

INGREDIENTS:

For The Cake...

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• .......
• 1/2 cup milk
• .......
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• .......
• 2 cups fresh blueberries, or well-drained frozen/thawed.

For The Topping...

• 1/4 cup butter, slightly softened
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

• Grease and flour (or spray) a 9x9-inch baking dish.
• Cream together the sugar, oil and egg until lemon-colored.
• Stir in milk.
• Sift together flour, salt, baking powder and very gently stir into the creamed mixture, just until incorporated.
• Gently fold in the blueberries.
• Spread batter into a greased and floured 9"x9" square baking dish.
• For the topping:  Cut the butter into the flour/sugar/cinnamon mixture.  Mix well and sprinkle over the top.  (I did this in my food processor.)

Below:  This is how it looked before baking...

In pre-heated 375-degree oven, bake for about 45 

minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Below:  This is how it looked when done...

And, later,....it looked like this!

YUMM-O!  (We added a ball of ice cream to this!)

*  Recipe from:  https://www.turkeyhill.com/recipes/lancaster-county-recipes/dutch-blueberry-cake-recipe.aspx  Since the recipe was 

without a picture, I was pleasantly surprised to see how the 

finished product turned out!

Carrot and Zucchini Bars* w/Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe is a KEEEEEEEEPER!!  
I think this is more like a snack cake than a bar.
It is moist AND ... SO good!

INGREDIENTS for the Bars:
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 small pinches of salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (some may prefer to use cinnamon in place of the ginger)
...
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used Smart Balance blend of oils)
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
...
1 and 1/2 cups finely shredded  carrots (I used a "fine grate" disc on my food processor to get this done.)
1 cup finely shredded zucchini (If using larger zucchini, cut in half and remove seeds/dry stuff.  I do not peel it.)
1/2 cups chopped walnuts (or pecans?), optional

INGREDIENTS for the Cream Cheese Icing:
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

..........................................................................................

DIRECTIONS for making the bars:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly spray a 9x13 baking dish with non-stick spray.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ground ginger).  Set aside.

In a "quite large" mixing bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, oil, honey, eggs, and vanilla extract.  Whisk until well mixed.  Set aside so the sugar granules can better dissolve while you grate the carrots and zucchini.

Grate the carrots and the zucchini.

Dump the well-whisked dry ingredients AND the grated carrots AND the grated zucchini AND the chopped nuts to the "wet ingredients" in the large mixing bowl.  Using a wide spatula or wooden spoon, GENTLY stir or fold these ingredients evenly into the wet ingredients-- to have the finished product end up lighter, do NOT over-mix/stir.

Dump finished batter into the prepared pan/dish, like this... 

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, which is about 25 minutes.  Coming out of the oven, mine looked like this... 

Place the pan on a wire rack and cool completely.

DIRECTIONS for making the icing:
Using an electric mixer, beat the softened cream cheese until it's smooth.  Add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract.  Beat together until all is VERY smooth and creamy-like (2-3 minutes?).  Spread evenly over the cooled bars.  

The bars can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature OR in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.  These also FREEZE very well!

*Recipe, with a different kind of icing, was adapted from website of 
http://realmomkitchen.com  And, before that, it came from  the
Better Homes and Gardens website at
 http://www.bhg.com/recipe/bars/carrot-and-zucchini-bars/