Buttercream Coffeecake

This post is as much about this delicious coffeecake as it is about how to make the perfect buttercream filling.  This is not a recipe from my mother’s recipe box, but from my first, dating back to when I set up housekeeping directly out of college in the late seventies.  I’m not sure where I found this recipe, but back then it took me a long time to prepare and, as a consequence, I didn’t make it very often.  Happily, these days, with food processors to make short work of chopping nuts and creating the perfect streusel topping, things go quite a bit faster.

While I liked this cake in my ignorant youth, and loved the sweet, buttery taste of the filling, it seldom turned out as I had hoped.  It was not as thick as I had expected and tended toward the grainy.  Fast forward way more years than I care to count and loads of wisdom, and that problem is solved.  Years, experience, and many failed recipes have taught me that there is a decided difference between “creaming” butter and “beating until incorporated.”  My guess is that most, if not all of you reading this post do not know that difference and, instead of creaming butter and sugar, simply beat it until it is incorporated.  Perhaps, well incorporated, but merely incorporated and not fully creamed.

Here is the difference.  When you cream butter alone or with sugar it needs to be beaten at medium-high to high speed for 5 to 7 minutes.  (I generally split the difference and beat for 6.) This is where a stand mixer can be a most welcome appliance in your kitchen.  The process of creaming should cause the sugar to melt into the butter forming one light, creamy, fluffy mixture.  Do this one simple thing and you will always have the very best cookies, cakes, toppings, and fillings. It is really that simple.

Now try out your new-found knowledge with this delicious, bakery-shop-worthy coffeecake.  It will be the crown jewel of your breakfast or brunch.

Buttercream Coffeecake

Streusel Topping:

1/3 cup butter

¾ cup flour

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup chopped walnuts

In the work bowl of a food processor, pulse together the butter, flour, sugar and cinnamon until crumbly.  Add walnuts and pulse once or twice to blend.  Set aside.

Coffeecake

1-1/2 cups flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon cardamom

½ cup butter

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 extra-large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor (optional)

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a 9” x 9” pan with foil, allowing a 2” overhang on two opposite edges.  Spray foil and exposed sides of pan with cooking spray.  Set aside.

Sift flour with baking powder, soda, salt, and cardamom into a medium bowl.  In a large bowl or the work bowl of your stand mixer that has been fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter on medium-high to high speed for 5-7 minutes.  Gradually add sugar during the last minute and beat for 5-7 additional minutes.  Reduce speed to medium and add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Blend in vanilla extract and Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor (if using).With mixer set at low speed, add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Spread mixture evenly along the bottom and into the edges of the prepared pan.  Sprinkle with streusel topping, covering completely.  Bake for 45-55 minutes or until cake tests done.  Remove to a wire rack and allow cooling for ten minutes before gently lifting from the pan using the foil “handles” to another rack.  Slide foil from beneath cake and allow to cool completely.  

Slice the cake in half horizontally. (I use the toothpick method described here.)  Fill with Buttercream Filling.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  Do remove from the fridge about 20 minutes prior to slicing.

Buttercream Filling

¼ cup flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup whole milk

2/3 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan set over low heat, combine flour, salt, and milk.  Cook, whisking constantly, until very thick.  Cool.  In the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter for 5-7 minutes.  Gradually add sugar during the last minute and continue beating for 5-7 additional minutes.  Add cooled flour mixture and beat until light and fluffy 1-2 minutes.  Blend in vanilla extract.

This post is linked to:

Inspire Me Tuesday

Tasty Tuesday

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Try a New Recipe Tuesday

Tasty Tuesdays

The Scoop

Wow Us Wednesday
Work It Wednesday

What’s It Wednesday

What We Accomplished Wednesday

Full Plate Thursday

Foodie Friday

Cherry Pie Coffeecake Bars

I’m not the biggest of pie fans, but I’ve always liked cherry pie, because of the cherries.  As a kid, I’d leave the crust and just scoop out the cherry deliciousness, much to my mother’s dismay.  She was known for her flaky crusts, you see, and I think this was somewhat of an insult.  When I saw a recipe for Cherry Pie Bars on the Recipe Critic’s blog, I knew they were in my future.  What I didn’t know is that I don’t own the 15”x10”x1” pan called for in the original recipe.  There was an option to make them in a 9”x13” pan, so that’s the path I took.  What I ended up with were not the bar cookies for which I’d hoped, but instead a moist and delicious cherry-filled coffee cake.  So I’ve renamed the recipe to suit the pan and end results.  I suspect this would look very pretty on a Christmas brunch buffet.

Cherry Pie Coffeecake Bars

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 (21-ounce) can cherry pie filling

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
2 Tbsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add eggs and beat well.  Beat in extracts.

In a separate bowl combine flour and salt.  Add to the creamed mixture.  Mix until just combined.  Do not over mix.

Grease a 9”×13” pan.  Spread 3 cups batter along the bottom of the pan.  Top with pie filling and spread to the edges with an offset spatula.  Drop remaining batter in dollops on top of pie filling.

Bake for 35-42 minutes or until toothpick comes clean.  Cool in pan on wire rack.  Combine glaze ingredients and drizzle over the top.

This post is linked to: 

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Try a New Recipe Tuesday

Tasty Tuesdays

Inspire Me Tuesday

Full Plate Thursday

Foodie Friday

Sugar and Spice

Sunday Sweeties

Plum Streusel Coffeecake

Prior to making yesterday’s Plum Butter, I measured out ¾ pound of plums and set them aside to make coffeecake.  You know how you tear recipes out of magazines, then put them in a file and never look at them again?  Well, I decided to look at that file last week, and found this recipe from a 1995 issue of Gourmet.  My mother is the coffeecake maker in our family these days, but I wanted to give this one a try.  Imagine then, my dismay, when one of the plums went missing!  I have baskets of peaches, nectarines, a bunch of bananas, and sliced melon all available for consumption, but did my husband go for any of these things?  No!  He managed to find the plums (well, plumcots, if you must know) that I had hidden behind the cauliflower in the vegetable bin, and he ate one!

“Boy,” he said, “was that plum ever delicious.”

“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’ll bet it was!”

For a man who can’t find the butter that is right in front of him, he was sure an ace at ferreting out my saved plums.  So, after an unwanted, and curmudgeonly, I might add, trip to the grocery store to buy one lone plum, I was finally on my way to creating this delicious breakfast cake.  It’s make ahead, can be frozen prior to baking and baked later, or frozen after baking, and it's beautiful, and delicious!

Plum Streusel Coffeecake

Gourmet, September 1995

For streusel
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup walnuts
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

For cake batter
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 pound Melissa's plumcots (4 to 5 medium), sliced
confectioners' sugar for sifting over cake

Preheat oven to 350°F. and butter and flour a 9-inch round or square baking pan at least 2 inches deep.

Make streusel: In a food processor pulse together streusel ingredients until combined well and crumbly.

Make cake batter: In a bowl with an electric mixer beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, and vanilla. Sift in flour with baking powder and salt and beat until just combined.

Spread cake batter in pan, smoothing top, and arrange plum slices over it in slightly overlapping concentric circles. Sprinkle streusel over plum slices and bake cake in middle of oven 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Coffeecake may be made 1 week ahead: Cool cake completely in pan on a rack and freeze, wrapped well in plastic wrap and foil. Reheat cake, unwrapped but not thawed, in a preheated 350°F. oven until heated through, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool cake slightly on a rack and sift confectioners' sugar over it. Serve coffeecake warm or at room temperature.

If you love coffeecakes, check out this book.  It’s the Bible for coffee cake lovers:

This post is linked to:

On the Menu Monday

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Try a New Recipe Tuesday

What's Cooking Wednesday

Deep Butter Cake

This post contains affiliate links.

Whoever it was who wrote to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and requested the recipe for Helfer’s Pastry Shop’s Deep Butter Cake has my deepest gratitude. That cake has been a favorite of mine since the seventies.  That fact that I can now make it at home makes me swoon.  It was quite by accident that I stumbled upon it here and, naturally, had to make it immediately.  It was as good as the version the shop sells, but I like to think that my adaptation of their already delicious recipe is what makes it Food for the Gods.  The above link will take you to the original recipe, my adaptation is below.

Deep Butter Cake

from Helfer's Pastries and Deli Cafe adapted by Pattie Tierney

For crumb mixture:

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor (see note)

1 cup all-purpose flour

For batter:

11/3 cups granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2/3 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon Butter Sweet Dough Flavor

13/4 cups cake flour

Powdered sugar, for garnish

Prepare the crumb mixture. In a small mixer bowl beat together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add salt, vanilla, butter flavoring and flour; beat at low speed just until crumbly. Cover and refrigerate.

Prepare the batter. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch-square baking pan.

Combine 1 1/3 cups sugar, 1 cup butter and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large mixer bowl; beat on high speed for 2 to 3 minutes or until fluffy. Add eggs; beat on high speed 2 to 3 minutes or until light.

Combine milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring. Alternately add cake flour and milk mixture to batter, starting and ending with flour. Beat on low speed, scraping sides of bowl, until well mixed.

Sprinkle crumb mixture evenly in prepared pan. Spread batter over crumb mixture. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until top is deep golden brown and cake tests done in the center with a wooden pick. Cool 5 minutes.

Place a flat plate or cake board on top of the pan. Hold the pan and plate together securely; turn over. Carefully remove the pan. (The crumb side is now the top of the cake.) Dust with powdered sugar.

Note: According to the original recipe, the inclusion of butter flavoring is essential to the success of this recipe.  While butter flavoring may have its place, it can’t hold a candle to this wonderful bakery emulsion. You can find it on Amazon here. Trust me when I tell you that you’ll never be sorry that you have this ingredient in your pantry.  It makes a world of difference, transforming your tasty pastries and baked goods into bakery shop quality products.

This post is linked to:

On the Menu Monday

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Try a New Recipe Tuesday

What's Cooking Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Foodie Friday

Sweets for a Saturday