Every cook needs a great coffee cake recipe for those lazy Sundays or potluck brunches or bake sales. This cardamom coffee cake is one of my favorites. It’s a classic crumb cake, topped with a generous sprinkle of streusel and perfumed with cardamom, which, in my view, is an completely underused spice. Click here for […]
Every cook needs a great coffee cake recipe for those lazy Sundays or potluck brunches or bake sales. This cardamom coffee cake is one of my favorites. It’s a classic crumb cake, topped with a generous sprinkle of streusel and perfumed with cardamom, which, in my view, is an completely underused spice.
Click here for the full cardamom coffee cake recipe!
So let’s make it together.
First, butter a 9-inch cake pan with removable sides and set your oven to 350º. Now, make the crumb topping: In a medium-size bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon.
The start of a streusel Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Add the softened butter and use a pastry cutter or your fingertips to work it into a crumbly topping. It’ll look like this:
Finished streusel Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Chill in the refrigerator while you prepare the cake.
For best results, use a standing or handheld mixer. Start with the butter, brown sugar, and sugar in the bowl.
Beating the butter and sugars together adds air into the mixture, which gives the cake a fine texture. Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Beat these ingredients together until pale and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Be sure to scrape down the sides periodically.
Notice how the color is still a darker brown? It will lighten as you continue to beat air into the mixture. Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Do take your time with this—it really improves the texture. Here’s the finished product.
The mixture is now paler and creamy.
Then you beat in the egg and egg yolk. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and cardamom. Add these dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the buttermilk. That means adding one-third of the flour, then half the buttermilk, another third of the dry mixture, the rest of the buttermilk, and the last of the dry. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides occasionally.
Adding the buttermilk Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and level with an offset spatula.
If your spatula is sticking to the batter, dip it in a little water. Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Sprinkle the topping over the cake (don’t press it into the batter).
Ready for the oven Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Bake until the top is golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes. Set on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Use a thin knife to loosen the cake from the sides of the pan. Carefully remove the sides, transfer the cake to a platter. Dust with confectioner’s sugar, if desired. and serve warm or at room temperature.
The finished cake Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
