Simplicity At It's Best

I did not intend to blog about this coffee cake. I was wanting to make Belgian waffles from my Williams-Sonoma Breakfast cookbook and noticed this recipe. The original version included dried cranberries and chocolate chips. In typical fashion, I wanted to use fresh cranberries and leave out the chocolate while Mr. H only wanted chocolate and no cranberries. We both compromised and left it plain, and I'm so glad we did. This coffee cake was perfectly delicious without any additions.

We may have left the coffee cake plain, but it was anything but. It's simple in that it doesn't call for any special ingredients to gussy it up- no nuts, no oats in the streusel, no brown sugar, not even vanilla extract (though I added that anyway, because old habits die hard). It does include sour cream, but other than that, it's just butter, sugar, flour, eggs and leaveners. One unique thing about this recipe is that it has you combine the sour cream with the baking soda prior to adding it to the batter, which makes it really light and airy. I've never seen or heard of that technique before, but it worked brilliantly.

The end result was a cake, so light and spongy, but buttery and rich at the same time. There's nothing dense or heavy about this breakfast cake and it'll keep you wanting more. I took a bite when it was still piping hot from the oven and couldn't stop picking at it. Before I knew it, I had eaten a quarter of the cake myself- it was just that good! Don't feel compelled to add anything to it, just try it as it is and enjoy it, in all it's simple glory. As I mentioned above, I didn't intend to blog about this recipe so there aren't any photos of the baking process, but it was just too good not to share. If you try it, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake adapted from Breakfast

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For The Streusel:

• 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

For The Cake:

• 1 1/4 cups sour cream
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with butter.

For the Streusel Topping: In a chilled bowl, combine the butter, sugar and flour. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut the butter into dry ingredients until the mixture is the consistency of fine, moist crumbs. Work the mixture with your hands until it will hold together when compressed, then squeeze it between your hands into several firm pieces. Cover and refrigerate until the cake is ready to go into the oven. (I did this the night before and had it ready to go the following morning).

For the Cake: Place the sour cream in a bowl and sift the baking soda and salt into it. Stir to blend evenly and set aside. As the sour cream mixture sits, it will get airy and fluffy.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed or a wooden spoon, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Sift the flour and baking powder over the top and mix in, then beat in the sour cream mixture. Scoop the batter into the prepared dish and smooth the surface. Scatter the streusel mixture evenly over the top, breaking it up into large crouton-sized pieces (some of the streusel mixture may be small crumbs).

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center on the cake comes out clean but not completely dry, 40-45 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into squares.

And for those of you who are hooked on Hayden, here are a couple pics of my bright-eyed little man. For Christmas, he wore this penguin sweater, but we didn't get any pictures of him wearing it. So last week before I took the Christmas tree down, I got him dressed up and snapped a few pictures. I put him on the ottoman and slid it in front of the tree. That's his handprint in the background. I couldn't find a "baby's 1st Christmas" ornament that I liked so we just made one with stuff I had around the house- a glass ornament, glue and glitter.

This one is my absolute favorites and will find it's way into a frame, I'm sure. I might be a little biased but I think he's just so beautiful and perfect. Y'all, I'm in love!

Have a great rest of the week!