Sour Cream Coffee Cake Recipe

Coffee cake is probably the most popular and most requested cake at bakeries all around the world. A couple of years ago, I got a super delicious recipe for a Sour Cream Coffee Cake from an issue of Fine Cooking.

The recipe comes from baking goddess Carole Walter and it's definitely the pastry that garners the most compliments when I make it! I use a different streusel topping and slightly modified version of the ripple inside the cake than what the original recipes call for.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Ingredients

cake flour 3 cups

baking powder 1 1/2 tsp

baking soda 1 tsp

salt 3/4 tsp

butter, slightly soft 10 ounces

superfine sugar 1 2/3 cups

eggs 4

vanilla 2 tsp

sour cream 16 ounces

1. Combine the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

2. Beat the butter in your Kitchen Aid until smooth.

3. Add sugar to butter gradually.

4. Add eggs and vanilla.

5. Add flour mixture and sour cream gradually, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. You should add the flour mixture four times and the sour cream three times.

Chocolate Ripple

semi-sweet chocolate 6 ounces

sugar 3 tbs

brown sugar 3 tbs

cocoa powder 3 tbs

Directions

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until blended.

Streusel

Ingredients

light brown sugar 1 1/8 cups
all-purpose flour 3/4 cup
cinnamon 1/2 Tbs plus 1/2 a tsp
salt 1/4 tsp
cold butter 2 1/4 oz

Directions

Combine ingredients in KitchenAid and mix until it is has the consistency of grated parmesan cheese.

How to assemble the cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease whatever pan you choose to bake in.

3. Whether you're using a regular cake pan, tube pan or anything else, you add a little bit of the batter into the pan (or wrapper), then the ripple ingredients, then more batter, more ripple and then the remaining batter.

4. Take a butter knife and put it into the cake and swirl it around in a circle so the ripple makes a pretty pattern when you cut into it.

5. Generously apply the streusel to the cake and press down.

6. Bake until the cake springs back when you touch it (the streusel will part as it bakes and you'll be able to touch the cake). This cake usually takes about 45 minutes to bake (20 if you bake them as cupcakes).

Another reason this cake is so great is because you can bake it in a number of different ways. The recipe tells you to bake it in a 10 inch tube pan with a removable bottom but I have also made it in cupcake wrappers, mini loaf pans and sheet cakes to be cut into individual squares. In the picture above, I added chocolate chips on top of the streusel before I baked it.