It's My Party and I'll Bake if I Want to . . . but do I Want to? (Cherry Cream-Cheese Coffeebread)

That's right, you heard me. It is my party . . . sort of. Okay, not a party exactly, just an intimate gathering of immediate family. Come this weekend, on Super Bowl Sunday, I turn 49 years old. We will be celebrating on Saturday evening in order to avoid potential conflict with the annual football spectacle. (One has to keep one's priorities in order, doesn't one?)

So what's the problem? Well, birthdays can present a slight dilemma for a bake-a-holic as well as the bake-a-holic's family. The burning question: From whence cometh the birthday cake?

As I see it, there are three options--all of them intriguing, none of them bad.

• Option no. 1: The bake-a-holic bakes her own cake because she wants to do it herself. (Remember, she's like a junkie that way.)

• Option no. 2: The bake-a-holic goes to a fabulous bakery and picks out something unusual and gorgeous that she'd never typically buy any other day of the year, and that is far too complicated and time consuming to ever consider baking at home . . . something that will surely dazzle all concerned.

• Option no. 3: The bake-a-holic's husband and children venture out into the big scary world to pick out a cake for her birthday, hoping against hope that they select something adequately impressive.

What would you do? At this juncture, I think I'm leaning toward option no. 2. I'm just not in a layer-cake makin' mood, and I don't want to thrust the cake selection task onto my family's shoulders (they get all flustered when forced to pick out baked goods, poor things). I'd kind of like to select an out of the ordinary cake that, besides being a part of our celebration, would make a good research subject. Yes, I like to dissect complicated bakery cakes. See what makes them tick. Sometimes I even draw little pencil diagrams of exactly what they look like and how they're composed, outside and in. (It's that junkie aspect again. Can't help myself.)

Let's get to the cherry cream-cheese coffee bread . . .

Anyway, at the moment I'm in more of a yeasty sweet-dough kind of a mood, which brings us to today's recipe. One of my baking goals this year is to branch out, fearlessly, with yeast dough, including sweet dough with which I've had almost no experience. I found this recipe for "Jam-Filled Sour Cream Coffee Bread" on the King Arthur Flour website. I'm calling mine Cherry Cream-Cheese Coffee Bread, reflecting--I think--more accurately what this is. Coffee bread or coffee cake, call it whatever you want. Either way this is a divine item, really delish. My teenage sons absolutely scarfed it down.

This coffee bread is supposed to look kind of like a lovely braid. Mine, though, ended up resembling a sloppy braid that's coming undone. Not a pretty product, but utterly palatable nonetheless. Because I had trouble with the braid aspect when putting together the first loaf, I decided to abandon that path when dealing with the second loaf and nix the braid altogether. Instead, I completely enclosed the second loaf's filling, and didn't even cut slits or anything in the top. Took my chances. Some of the filling did leak out a bit from that rather over-stuffed second loaf when baking, but no real damage was done.

Were I to make this recipe again--and I wouldn't hesitate to do so--I think I might divide the dough into three smaller loaves. It was difficult to keep them intact while trying to move them onto the baking sheet. I suspect that step would be more manageable if each loaf was shorter. I assume you could use just about any jam flavor you like. The basic Smucker's cherry jam I used provided a fine balance of sweet and tart, but I'd also consider using raspberry or apricot preserves. I'm sure the braid design looks lovely when done well and I'd like to give that another go.

Caveat: If you plan to make this, do it on a day when you have plenty of time to devote to the process. It's not hard but it takes a while, and what with the long risings it requires some babysitting.

What did I change?

I altered the recipe by leaving out a couple of optional ingredients. One of them was "buttery sweet dough flavoring." That's an artificial flavoring that I've only ever seen for sale in cake decorating stores and which, of course, King Arthur also wants you to buy from them. Also, I left out Instant Clearjel, which they suggest adding to the jam, and which is made from waxy maize. (Waxy maize, as used by bakers, is sort of like cornstarch but more stable; they use it at school in my retail baking class for things like fruit pie fillings. I've never seen this stuff for sale in stores. It does have certain advantages over corn starch, and it's worth looking into, in case you're curious.) I've never purchased Clearjel, but I'm going to be on the lookout for it at the grocery store as I'd like to give it a whirl. I reworded the King Arthur directions here and there, as usual, adding in my two cents when needed.

Cherry Cream-Cheese Coffee Bread

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Dough ingredients:
3 cups unbleached All-Purpose flour or pastry flour (I used pastry flour)
3 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 and 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sour cream
4 Tbsp. butter
1 large egg yolk, white reserved
1/3 cup lukewarm water
1 Tbsp. instant yeast (not active dry)

Filling ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg white, reserved from dough (above), mixed with 1 Tbsp. cold water
*1 cup jam (flavor of your choice) mixed with 3 Tbsp. Instant Clearjel or flour (I didn't include either of these and all was fine)

Topping:
1/4 cup coarse/sanding sugar (for sparkle!)

Combine all of the dough ingredients in a mixer bowl and, on low speed, mix and knead until a soft, smooth dough forms. (I used a dough hook from the start for this, on the lowest speed, and it took about 5 minutes or so for the dough to get nice and smooth.) The dough will seem dry. Resist the urge to add any additional flour.


Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover it with a dish towel or plastic wrap and set it somewhere kind of warm to rise. Leave it alone for 90 minutes. It will barely look like it's risen at all and that's okay.

(The top photo of the dough is how the dough looked before rising; the next photo is how it looked after the rising time was over. See? Almost no difference is evident.)

Divide the dough, on a slightly floured surface, into two pieces. Working with one piece at a time, roll it or pat it into a 10" x 15" rectangle. Let it rest while you make the filling.


For the filling, gently beat together until smooth the cream cheese, butter, sugar, salt, and the flour or Instant Clearjel if you're using one of those. Add in the 1 whole egg and continue to beat gently until only a few lumps are visible.


Return to the dough rectangle and spread half of the jam in a 2 and 1/2" swath down the middle of it, lengthwise. Leave 1" of dough bare at each short end.


Spread half of the cream cheese mixture on top of the jam. Fold the bare 1" of dough over the filling at each end. If you want to make it look like a braid, use a pastry wheel or sharp knife to cut little flaps, each about 3/4" wide, along both sides in the bare dough. Stop each cut before you get too close to the jam and cream. Then, starting at one end and alternating sides, gently pull the strips up and over, criss-crossing to give the appearance of a braid. (To see exactly how this is supposed to be done, go to this link at King Arthur; the photos are very helpful!)

As carefully as you can, transfer the loaf to your baking sheet. It will be very floppy and soft.

Repeat the whole process with your other chunk of dough.

Cover both loaves and let both them rise again for 90 minutes. As before, they may look as if they haven't risen at all and that's okay. Towards the end of the rising time (allow at least 20 minutes, I'd say), preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine the egg white and water, and brush all over the tops of the loaves. Sprinkle the coarse sugar liberally over the loaves.

Bake the loaves until they're golden brown, perhaps 20 to 30 minutes. (Mine only took 22 minutes to bake. King Arthur suggests "32 to 36 minutes" but mine would have been completely burned if I'd left them in that long. I say check on them at 20 minutes and follow your instincts from there!)

Let the finished loaves cool on a rack. Slices of this bread are good served warm or cold. Best the first day.


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Hello there, September . . . Would You Like a Piece of Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake?

It's been unseasonably cool here lately, and people keep saying things like, "Well, I guess summer's over." Personally, I think the days of chillier than average temperatures are simply a late summer fluke, but I must admit I'm enjoying them. It's so much nicer to bake when you don't have to hermetically seal yourself into an air conditioned house, just so your oven won't seem like a blast furnace.

So, taking advantage of the good weather, I was in my kitchen yesterday morning contentedly measuring and mixing and slicing. My intention was to make a plum-ginger upside-down cake. I made it alright, but it was an unmitigated disaster. A real mess. It was with resigned disgust that I threw it in the trash shortly after taking it out of the oven. It looked so awful I couldn't seriously have contemplated keeping it, let alone serving it to another living mammal. Here's a picture of the whole revolting mess, just as I'm tossing it out . . . pretty gross, isn't it?

I can't really fault the recipe, though. I screwed it up to start with by accidentally leaving out an important ingredient (milk), the absence of which I didn't discover--of course--until after the cake was in the oven. It had occurred to me, as I was spreading the batter over the plums, that the batter seemed unusually thick. I was pondering this when I glanced over at the window above the sink, and there on the sill I noticed my glass measuring cup containing the designated milk. Ahh, that explains why the batter's the texture of spackling paste, I thought to myself. I heaved a heavy sigh. But, since the plum cake was just something I was making for fun, I didn't sink into complete despair and I figured, perhaps, it could be salvaged. Then, to add insult to injury, I foolishly took the cake out of the oven way too early. The visible part of it looked completely baked to me, but I had nagging doubts. Now, I've been around the block enough times to know that until a cake like this is flipped over and the pan is lifted off, one never really knows exactly what an upside-downer is going to look like. I knew the danger, and yet I ignored my instincts. The unveiling isn't supposed to be a shocking event, in any case. It's not supposed to be like unmasking the phantom of the opera. And yet that's exactly what it was like. (Ooooo . . . I shudder at the memory of its abject hideousness.)

Good riddance to bad plum cake. Moving on . . .

To exorcise the specter of the nasty plum-ginger upside-down cake, I then decided to make an uncomplicated coffee cake and vowed to follow the instructions with military precision. This I did, and as a result we have today's recipe. It's a Martha Stewart recipe, from her Baking Handbook. I squelched my perennial desire to tweak it. Well . . . okay. . . almost squelched it . . . I admit I tweaked the streusel, and maybe I tweaked the amount of sour cream in the cake's batter, but all to good effect I swear! And, of course, I rewrote the directions (naturally).

Anyway, it's a fine coffee cake. I'd recommend it. Nice texture, not heavy. Nice flavor, not too sweet. You can eat it with a fork or hold it in your hand. The streusel topping has a lovely buttery flavor, and it's a pretty cake too. Neither hideous nor revolting. It doesn't even remind one of unsightly phantoms.


Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9" tube pan, or a springform pan with the tube insert (butter it well).

For the streusel:

1 cup and 2 Tbsp. All Purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients with a fork. Add in the butter, and blend it in with a pastry blender. The streusel should have some little chunks here and there; no need to blend it too much. Put the bowl aside, in the fridge, until you're ready to use it.

For the cake:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups All Purpose flour (I used bleached)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup and 2 Tbsp. sour cream
1 cup frozen sour cherries that have been thawed and well drained (important that they're well drained and not too wet)

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy--about three minutes. Add in the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the sour cream in two parts; begin and end with the flour mixture. Beat until just combined, and stop to scrape the bowl and the paddle as needed.

Spread about half the batter in the buttered pan. Place the cherries evenly on top of the batter, being careful not to let any of them get close to the sides or center of the pan. (They all need to be completely covered by batter.)

Carefully spread the remaining batter over that and smooth the top. Sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over that.

Bake for approximately 35 to 40 minutes. When the top is golden, and it springs back slightly when gently pressed, the cake is done. (I also did the toothpick test. I was gun shy after that plum cake incident!) Let the cake cool on a rack for about 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a dish or flat baking sheet, then immediately reinvert it back onto a rack to finish cooling. Glaze the cake when it's fully cooled, if you prefer. Or leave it plain. Delicious either way!

For glaze:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 Tbsp. milk or half & half

After the cake is completely cooled, mix sugar and milk together until completely smooth. Drizzle on the cake. (If you prefer, you can flavor the glaze with just a couple drops of vanilla or almond extract. Remember, though, brown vanilla will make the glaze look beige instead of bright white.)



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Fresh Sweet-Cherry Coffee Cake . . . Yum . . .

One of my very favorite food blogs is Confessions of a Tart. Is it one you've ever visited? Almost every time I do, I find a recipe I'd like to try. It contains some of the most lovely and striking photos I've ever seen in any blog, and not just of baked goods. Its writer, whose name is Irene, has an intuitive way with her camera. Anyway, I'm a big fan.

A nice cherry coffee cake recipe--made with fresh sweet cherries, mind you--caught my eye in Confessions of a Tart recently and I tried it out yesterday, with slight revision. The texture is wonderfully velvet-like and kind of dense without actually coming across as heavy. The flavor is delicate; it fittingly complements the sweet-tart Bing cherries. Truly good.

The biggest changes I made to Irene's recipe included adding in a very small amount of lemon zest, adding in a wee bit more salt, baking the cake for no longer than 35 minutes max, draining a little juice from the berries at the get-go, and rewriting the directions a smidgen. Oh, and I baked it in a 9" springform pan. (I'm sure it would work just as well in any 9" layer cake pan but, never having made it before, I wasn't sure so I wanted a pan with slightly higher sides.)

**Full Recipe Disclosure: Irene notes in her post for cherry coffee cake that she in fact discovered the recipe in another food site called "A Series of Kitchen Experiments." Irene altered that recipe, and created her post based on her revision. I, in turn, looked at both recipes in both sites, and made my own version, which is sort of a slightly modified, happy medium between the two versions. ( Did you get all that? Are we good to go, or do you think I need to get on the horn and secure the services of an intellectual property attorney??)

It's a simple recipe with a pleasing result. Just what we all need now and then, right?


Fresh Sweet-Cherry Coffee Cake

(For a printable version of this recipe click here!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put a rack in the upper third of your oven.
Grease and flour, or spray with baking spray, a 9" cake pan or springform pan.

1 and 1/2 cups of cherries, pitted and sliced in halves or quarters (whichever you like)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups All Purpose flour, bleached or unbleached
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 scant tsp. of lemon zest
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk

Place the pitted, sliced cherries in a small bowl and mix in a tablespoon of granulated sugar.

Pour the cherries into a strainer or colander placed over the bowl, and let juice drip off of them for about an hour.


Measure and combine the dry ingredients--flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

After an hour has passed, discard the juice in the bowl that dripped from the cherries. Put the drained cherries back in the empty bowl and mix in 1 tsp. of vanilla. Set aside.


Cream the butter and sugar in the large bowl of a mixer for a couple of minutes, until light and fluffy.


Add the eggs to the creamed mixture, one at a time, until well combined.



Add the lemon zest and the additional 1/2 tsp. of vanilla to the creamed mixture; combine.

Now, stirring just by hand--not with the mixer--add in the flour mixture and the milk alternately--three portions of flour and two of milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir just until combined; don't overmix. The batter will be thick.




Gently fold the cherries into the batter. Don't mix too zealously or the batter will become pinkish from the cherries. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.


Set on the upper oven rack. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the top is lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


Cool completely on a rack.

Garnish the top with confectioner's sugar and a couple of your prettiest leftover cherries.

Enjoy!


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