Sunday, May 16, 2010

Blackberry Coffee Cake

So, I decided to cheat and bake before finals as a way to relax. I know I was supposed to make cupcakes but those take too long and I didn't have much time today. Cupcakes on monday or tuesday.

Not the prettiest thing in the world, but still looks good!

For the coffee cake, I decided to tweak the recipe because I didn't have blueberry filling, but it worked out just the same. I've made this recipe before for a Pot-Luck before but with fresh blueberries and raspberry topping. This recipe was from my KitchenAid cookbook: Great Baking and More.

Recipe:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (sifted)
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cups (1&1/2 sticks) butter, chilled, and cup into small pieces
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
18 oz (2 1/4 cups) blackberries

Optional:
  • instead of milk, you can use buttermilk
  • add macadamia nuts to the crumbly topping
  • use margarine instead of butter
  • use 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1 3/4 cups all purpose. I didn't have whole wheat today so I used all all-purpose.
  • any fruit topping you want, you can add any fruit you want and/or pie filling
  • for the crumb topping, use 3/4 cup of the reserve flour, not 1/2 cup like the recipe says. I felt that it wasn't enough. Or just make a little more.
Instructions:

Put in the all-purpose flour, brown sugar, and butter in a bowl of an electric mixer. Using the flat beater attachment, turn the speed to stir (low) and mix until the butter is about the size of peas, which is about 3 minutes. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl. Remove 1/2 cup (see optional above) of the flour mixture and set aside to be used as a crumb topping. Next, add the baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the flour mixture. Turn the speed to stir (low), and mix for 30 seconds. Add the milk and the egg. Continue to mix on stir (low) just until moistened, about 30 seconds. Don't over-beat! (If you over-beat, there will be too much gluten formation and the cake will come out tougher.)
Spoon the batter into a greased 13x9x2-inch baking dish. (Remember, it you're using a glass container, lower the oven temperature down by 4 degrees. Glass bakes things faster than aluminum pans.) Drop filling by tablespoons in top of batter. Swirl the filling into the batter. Sprinkle the top with the crumb topping of the reserved flour mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown and delicious (sorry, Alton).

Nutritional Facts:

Now for the nutritional assessment! Those of you who rather not know how much fat and calories is in the piece of blackberry coffee cake, I do not suggest you read the next portion!

Serving Size: 1/16 of a cake *see note below
Calories: 242 calories
Protein: 3 grams
Carbohydrate: 29 grams
Fat: 13 grams
Cholesterol: 37 milligrams
Sodium: 198 milligrams

Overall, I really liked this coffee cake. It was the right balance of sweetness and tart from the berries. It was slightly moist, crumbly, but not too dry. What I probably would change for next time, though, is the height of the cake. It was smaller than I anticipated, so maybe tweaking the recipe so that the chemical balance of the ingredients create a higher rising cake. I would definitely make this coffee cake again, and perhaps even use a crumb cake topping instead of just the flour mixture to give it more crunch to the top. The blackberries made the top squishy, which, I thought, was good anyway. A little crunch would have been nice.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this recipe and will try to make it. Feel free to comment with questions or advice. It's a basic coffee cake recipe. I've made ones before with sour cream or cream cheese added too. Gotta love food science. Thanks for reading!

-Joanna

*Note about serving size. A serving size means that all of the nutritional information listed corresponds to the 1/16 piece of cake that you made. It doesn't apply to the entire cake. Multiply the grams and calories by 16, and then see how many calories and grams there are in the entire cake. Whenever you see serving size, be cautious of the things that are in the product. This applies to all food nutritional labels that are used in the USA. They all have serving sizes.

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