Coffee Cake Memoir

Sometime back my husband brought me home a wonderful coffee cake from The Honey Baked Ham Company. This coffee cake was of a pound cake consistency and texture with a cinnamon nut crumb topping and a marbling within. Very Yummy! Ever since that first cake he brought home I purposed to attempt to recreate it and the bleak, dreary day yesterday provided the opportunity I had been waiting for. The results were, in the words of my nine year old..."this is the best cake ever" I take that as success. I must say yesterday's cake was even better this morning after the crust had hardened slightly and the flavors had increased in intensity.

Here is what I did. I found a pound cake recipe(my favorite is the sour cream pound cake in an old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook)since my favorite recipe was not at my disposal I used Grandmother Paul's Sourcream Pound Cake from Paula Deen's Lady and Son's Cookbook. I followed the recipe exactly, but next time I will cut it by 1/3 since it ended up being a bit more batter than needed for the bundt pan I used.

Here is the recipe as written by Paula Deen

2 stick of butter
3 c. sugar
1 c. Sour Cream
3 c. all purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda(I guess I did make a change here, I added to this 1 tsp of baking powder for more rise)
6 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together; add sour cream. Sift flour and baking soda together. Add to creamed mixture, alternately with eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Add vanilla.

Here is my coffee cake addition to the recipe. I didn't measure, but I'll try and give some estimated measurements here.
Place the following in a bowl:

1-2 cups of chopped nuts(I used pecans)
1/2-1 cup of brown or raw sugar
2-4T of cinnamon
4T of butter
Blend together with hands.

Place half of mixture in the bottom of a greased and floured bundt pan, pour in half of cake batter and sprinkle the other half of crumb mixture in, cut through with a butter knife and top with remaining batter. Bake at 325 for an hour and then sit back and enjoy or save for the next morning to have with a cup of coffee.


Enjoy!