Dive into rich, warm, welcoming coffee cake
Nothing is more warming and comforting on an autumn day than coffee cake. Not to mention that it’s the perfect excuse for indulging your sweet tooth first thing in the morning.
A form of quick bread, coffee cakes are easy to assemble, too. Put one in the oven. Make a pot of coffee. And your family and house guests will awake to a tantalizing aroma profile — caffeine wafting with cinnamon, toasted pecans, brown sugar and butter. Add sliced apples to the mix and you have the perfect paean to fall.
Sour creamor vegetable oil ensure moistness. But coffee cakes needn’t be gussied up with toppings. A coffee cake can be pure and plain.
The late great food writer Marion Cunningham, whodied in July, loved coffee and cake. Starting with a rich batter that tastes like vanilla ice cream, her coffee cake is simplicity itself. With its exceedingly soft texture, it hits all the pound- cake notes without the density.
In her new book, “Pecans” ( UNC Press, $ 18), Kathleen Purvis tells us about a North Carolina restaurant that served a coffee cake so popular that the kitchen had to make two dozen pans a day. You’ll understand why when you fork into this nutty spiced cake slathered with strawberry- pecan butter.
Drizzled with icing and laden with pecans, cinnamon and raisins, Apple- pecan coffee cake has the flavor of cinnamon rolls and the structure of a coffee cake.
Just keep the cake beside the coffee pot and let your guests help themselves. It’s a magnet for nibblers.