Walnuts and cinnamon sugar swirl through this sugar-dusted sour cream coffee cake. - Contributed
CERTAINLY NOT everyday or every week, but some fine morning, why not let them have their cake? Let them eat it too, at breakfast. What else (except maybe fresh flowers) so transforms breakfast into a celebration as warm, fragrant cake?
In less time than you'll spend making a party cake, you can have either of the breakfast cakes below ready to present. Each is distinctive in appearance and flavour: One is a rich coffee cake layered with buttery walnuts, brown sugar and cinnamon; the other, an unusual tea cake, is infused with sweet lemon syrup.
SUCCESS TIPS
Too much baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) makes baked goods taste soapy. As a rule of thumb, use no more than a teaspoon of baking soda per cup of acidic liquid for leavening. For batters that require greater leavening power, the solution is adding baking powder not extra baking soda to the mix.
Sifting baking soda with the baking powder, flour or other dry ingredients called for in a recipe helps prevent clumping and disperses the leavening evenly.
Sour Cream-Walnut Breakfast Cake
Bake this generously sized breakfast cake in a bundt pan or tube pan that holds the same volume, and serve it in thin slices.
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour, preferably whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups regular sour cream (not non-fat sour cream)
2 tbsp. cold butter, cut in small pieces
Confectioner's sugar
Cinnamon-Walnut Filling (recipe below)
METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, stir together flours,baking soda, baking powder and salt.
2. In a large bowl, cream the 3/4 cup butter with sugars until light and fluffy. Blend in vanilla. Then add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream, mixing to blend after each addition.
4. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the Cinnamon-Walnut Filling over bottom of a well-greased, lightly floured 10-inch bundt or other tube pan with a capacity of 10 to 12 cups. Spoon in half of the batter. Sprinkle evenly with about half of the remaining filling; dot with 1 tablespoon of the cold butter pieces. Add remaining batter, then sprinkle with remaining filling, and dot with remaining butter.
5. Bake (45 to 50 minutes) until cake tests done when a long skewer is inserted in thickest part .
6. Let stand in pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, then invert pan to release cake. Dust top with confectioner's sugar before serving.
Serves 10 to 12.
Cinnamon-Walnut Filling
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts.
METHOD
In a small bowl, mix sugar, cinnamon and walnuts.
Lemon Tea Cake
A lemon syrup applied after baking perfumes and flavours this handsome almond cake. Almond flour (sometimes labelled almond meal) is available in natural food stores and speciality food shops. For the freshest almond meal, grind your own, using an electric nut mill and blanched (skinless) almonds, rather than a blender or food processor, which tends to grind nuts into paste rather than a powder. If only a blender or food processor is available, grind the nuts along with the flour and sugar in the recipe, but watch carefully to avoid overgrinding.
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs (at room temperature)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. each baking powder and baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup finely ground blanched almond meal
1 cup plain yoghurt
Lemon Syrup (recipe below)
METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in lemon zest and vanilla, then add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and almond meal. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with yoghurt, beating well after each addition.
3. Pour batter into a well-greased, lightly floured 8 1/2- to 9-inch bundt pan or other 9-cup tube pan.
4. Bake (50 to 60 minutes) until cake pulls away from sides of pan and tests done when a long skewer is inserted in thickest part. Using a fork, pierce surface of cake all over. Slowly pour lemon syrup over hot cake. Let cake cool to lukewarm in pan on a wire rack.
5. Invert cake onto a plate for serving.
Serves 8 to 10.
Lemon Syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp. water
In a small saucepan, combine sugar, lemon juice and water and stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and mixture boils. Boil for 2 minutes. Keep warm until ready to use.
Lifestyle Media Group/Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate
