Coffee Cake.

I always enjoy trying out new recipes, but it doesn't seem to happen as often as I would like. Since I usually give away a lot of baking, I tend to stick to things I know work out. This weekend, I decided I really wanted coffee cake, and branched out by trying a recipe from a gorgeous cookbook I received as a house warming gift. I adapted this from The Williams-Sonoma Baking Book's recipe for "Macadamia Nut Coffee Cake", except I didn't have any macadamia nuts (or "macadamia nut oil"... because who does?) but it was pretty darn tasty anyways!

Macadamia Nut-Free Coffee Cake

Topping:

2/3 C flour

1/3 C sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

6 T cold butter cut into small pieces

Cake:

1 + 1/2 C flour

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C packed brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 C sour cream

2 large eggs

1/2 C vegetable oil (or "macadamia nut oil" if you are fancy enough to stock that in your kitchen)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9" round cake pan (they recommend a springform pan, but I ended up using my 9x13... it was good, but a bit thin...)

In a small bowl, mix together the topping ingredients, using fingers or a pastry cutter to make a crumble.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  In another bowl, combine wet ingredients. Stir the wet mix into the dry, whisking until smooth.

Pour half the batter into the pan, spreading it evenly. Sprinkle half the crumble topping over the batter. Cover with the remaining batter, (they call for 1 C chopped macadamia nuts at this point, but I didn't have any) and sprinkle the remaining topping over everything.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (They called for 40-45 minutes... I did 40 minutes and in my oven it was a bit too long... would have been better at about 35 minutes I think!) Allow to cool before serving.

It's very tasty warm or at room temp! (Trust me!) The two layers of the crumbly topping give it a nice flavor boost, although I upped the spices a bit to make up for the lack of nuts.

Note to self: awesome red plates make for trippy pictures.