Tommy and I played host to Rachel and Mike and Tommy’s parents last weekend (Rachel and Mike on Friday night, Tommy’s parents on Saturday and Sunday night). I wanted to have a nice breakfast on Saturday morning, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen either. I remember reading a blog post about coffee cake recently. I read through the recipe and realized that if I didn’t want to spend all morning in the kitchen, I would need to make this coffee cake the night before (it has to cook for an hour and then sit for at least 30 minutes before eating).
This was fairly easy to make and tasted great. It tasted like good coffee cake with a little strawberry jam in it. Tasty tasty. Rachel, Mike, Tommy and I only ate half of the cake on Saturday morning, so we ate it for breakfast again on Sunday morning with Tommy’s parent. After sitting on the counter, covered, for a day, it was still deeeelicious.
Strawberry Jam Coffee Cake
Crumb Topping
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup butter, melted
In a medium bowl, stir together dry topping ingredients until combined, then stir in melted butter until damp crumbs are formed and the mixture sticks together into chunks when you squeeze it between your fingers. Set aside.
Cake
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup strawberry jam or preserves
Preheat oven to 350F and line a 9-in square pan (I used an 8 X 11-inch glass dish) with parchment paper. Lightly grease and set aside. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla, followed by the eggs, adding them one at a time until mixture is smooth.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to sugar mixture, alternating with sour cream in two or three additions, until well blended. Spread evenly into prepared pan.
Stir jam in a small bowl until smooth and drop by spoonfuls onto the cake batter. Gently swirl through with a knife. Top with crumb mixture, clumping it by squeezing it between your fingers while you work and spreading it into as even a layer as possible. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (mine ended up baking for 70 minutes, at which point the middle still didn’t seem finished, but I took it out anyway because the crumb topping was beginning to burn. When I cut into it the next morning, it was perfect.) Cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing.
