I love anything with cinnamon, but I usually don’t stop there; I add nutmeg, cloves, cardamom and ginger, inevitably ending up with a chai-spiced cake every time. I simple adore anything that reminds me of a masala chai. This time, though, I reined it in and stuck with cinnamon – but only because I intended to eat it while drinking chai. I wanted a delicious and simple coffee cake that I could nosh on with my morning tea (or coffee, for you coffee drinkers).
I was aiming for a pound cake sort-of-feel, but I decided I didn’t want a pound of butter and a pound of sugar in anything I made. I also often find pound cake to be a bit dry at times. I wanted this cake to stay moist no matter what, especially since I’m a bit of a slow eater when it comes to coffee cakes.
The end product was fabulous. It stayed perfectly soft, even days after I cut my first slice. A sprinkle of coarse sugar around the loaf pan and atop the cake added a caramelized crunch to the outside of the cake. (The crunch subsided after a couple days, but the cake was still very tasty.) It goes great with tea, coffee or even a glass of milk. This is most certainly one for the recipe repertoire.
Snickerdoodle Coffee Cake Courtesy of Amrita Rawat
8 to 10 Servings
½ cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup heavy cream
1 ½ cup cake flour
½ tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. coarse sugar, divided
1 tsp. cinnamon, divided
• Beat the butter and sugar with an electric beater until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Add the vanilla and continue beating.
• Add the heavy cream and continue beating until it’s well incorporated.
• Add the cake flour and salt and beat just until folded.
• Grease a 9-inch loaf pan.
• Sprinkle 1 to 1½ tablespoons of coarse sugar all around the pan, covering the sides as well.
• Pour half the batter into the pan and sprinkle about ½ to ¾ teaspoon of the cinnamon on top.
• Add in the rest of the batter and sprinkle the remaining ¼ to ½ teaspoon cinnamon on top, as well as the remaining ½ tablespoon of the coarse sugar.
• Place the loaf pan in the cold oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Bake for 50 minutes (from the time it is placed in the cold oven) or until a skewer or cake tester comes out clean or with a few crumbs attached.
• Let cool and serve at room temperature.
— Photo by Amrita Rawat
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2011.
