Special Morning Coffee Cake recipe from the Gorgeous Gourmet

My assigned blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club was the Gorgeous Gourmet.  Candice lives in Cape Town, South Africa.  I've been enjoying perusing her blog, looking at some great ideas for breakfast along with some pretty yummy main dishes that are a bit different from mine - gammon, for example. I had to look up what it was, and my initial guess of some kind of fowl was totally off the mark. Gammon is ham. And I've put Candice's recipe for Gammon with Plum Sauce on my "must do" list.

But for today, I made a breakfast treat. I've been house-sitting for a friend who's off exploring the Galapagos Islands. She has a few dogs and a horse who need regular feeding, so I've been spending my evenings and nights at her house. Tomorrow I'll be coming home right after I feed the horse, and decided that this afternoon (I'm at my house) I'd make a coffee cake that can be reheated by my neglected husband in the morning. We just might sample this one tonight - as a matter of fact, Candice has a photo on her blog of this coffee cake with some ice cream.

Special Morning Coffee Cake
from The Gorgeous Gourmet

This is Candice's photo - it's too dark and dreary to take a decent photo here!

Ingredients:

For the topping

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the base:

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup milk

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla

 


Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line and grease a cake tin, or square baking tin (about 20cm) .

In a small bowl, with a fork, mash together the softened butter, 1/4 cup flour, brown sugar, sugar, and cinnamon. Don’t worry about making fine crumbs, clumps are good here –they will be put on top of the cake, and sink in while baking.

In a small bowl combine the 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl beat the egg and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the melted butter, milk, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture all at once and stir together just until incorporated.

Pour into prepared pan and dot the surface with the brown sugar mixture. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until moist crumbs cling to a toothpick inserted in the middle.

The verdict:  Great!  We enjoyed our sample after dinner for dessert, and then reheated the rest of it for breakfast the next morning.  This is similar to my mother's coffee cake but has more yummy cinnamon-sugar mixture. I'm now going to be torn as to which one I make!