Sunday, October 11, 2009

Pumpkin Coffee Cake: Thanksgiving/Holiday Recipe #1

To my taste testers at Cornerstone Church

In my dream world, I cook and host elegant, elaborate parties on fine china, serve tea and delicious sandwiches with designer plates, and have elegant breakfasts with my lady friends with delicious espressos and cappuccinos in my beautiful garden veranda. I am so far off from this reality with three small children, a part time job and a husband who works odd hours. And that is okay, because a dream is a wonderful thing to have.

One day I'll have my dream and I'll make this coffee cake which I created with my dream in mind. The cake is wonderful pumpkin-y, due to the decision I made to leave the cake batter itself without any spices, and instead to put the entirety of the spices in the streusal swirl and topping. It is also not overpoweringly sweet and rather the pumpkin and spices shine, not sugar. This is also a cake that benefits from being made ahead of time, so perhaps my dream of hosting a beautiful breakfast coffee and cake isn't so far off...

Meanwhile, I fully intend to make this the day after Thanksgiving for some out-of-town guests we'll have over for breakfast.

Pumpkin Coffee Cake
Serves 12

Topping
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick) room temperature
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger (feel free to make your own spice mixture of the spices you like)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cake
2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, (1 stick) room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can of pumpkin (15 oz)

For the topping, combine flour, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl. Mix until crumbly. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375. Butter and flour 13X9X2-inch baking pan. Sift 2 cups of flour, baking powder, and salt into a small bowl. Using electric mixer, beat 1/2 cup of butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar, beating until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating to blend after each addition. Mix in entire can of pumpkin. With the mixer on low, add the dry mixture. Mix until just all blended.

Pour half of the batter into the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle half the 1/2 the topping mixture. Pour and spread remaining batter on top. Sprinkle topping evenly over batter. Bake until tester inserted into center comes and clean and topping is golden brown, about 40 minutes. Cool cake. Serve room temperature. (It gets better with some rest.)

Printable recipe
You know you want to sink your mouth into this.

18 comments:

Liesl said...

It looks delicious! I love Pumpkin!

NikiTheo said...

I've been getting so into pumpkin this year!!! I will have to make this for my work friends. They'll love it right along with me...

Would this work in bundt pan too? Or is it not dense enough? And did it ast into the next day? If so, how was it? I usually make things the night before, but I've noticed lots of cakes have a VERY different texture the next day!

ABowlOfMush said...

Wow this looks amazingly moist and delicious!

Joanne Choi said...

Niki - I'm guessing it word work in a bundt pan as well, but then your streusal topping would end up being on the bottom of the cake instead of the top, so I'd suggest that you just put all the streusal in the middle of the cake and sort of swirl it by dragging a knife through the batter and the streusal spice mix.

I made it and found it BETTER on the second day.

Jessica said...

Ooh pairing pumpkin and coffee! Genius!

NikiTheo said...

Awesome! Most cakes are better the next day, aren't they??
I'm making this tonight, I'm so excited! :)

Jennifer Romanchak said...

I spend all year waiting for fall just so that I can cook with pumpkin! I've got a ton of pumpkin recipes but this particular one seems so simple, moist and delicious and I can't wait to try it!

Mike Pegg said...

I'll vouch for this recipe as I tried the end result past weekend. Perfect coffee cake for the season!

NikiTheo said...

I made this last night in the bundt pan! I did end up putting a wee bit of the topping on the bottom of the bundt pan just to see what would happen. It made the top a bit crunchy and cinnamon-y, but not like yours. The streusel in the middle was delicious too! All in all, awesome! I didn't have any until the second day, so I don't know if it is lighter the day before, but this is a very thick dense cake the next day! Definitely a great breakfast for me and my co-workers!

Mommy's Kitchen said...

This is a awesome looking coffee cake. I am going to make it for Thanksgiving Morning. Thank you so much for sharint the recipe.

Codarus said...

I just made this last night and brought it into work. It was gone in fifteen minutes. I will definitely be making this one again soon.

Joanne Choi said...

thanks to all who tried the cake!

jenny+3 said...

I can also vouch for this. Had it this past weekend. Have been dreaming about it since.

Beth said...

I made this yesterday. Delicious!!
FYI - the recipe instructions do not include when to add the vanilla extract.

Kevin said...

I could definitely go for some pumpkin coffee cake for breakfast!

Victoria said...

Delicious, I just wanted to let you know a couple of changes I made :)

I am a nut fiend, I added half a cup of chopped walnuts and a sliver more butter to the topping

Egg Free- started baking and relized I was out of eggs, used one large mashed banana instead (tones down the pumpkin a bit too)

enjoy!

Leslie said...

I was not crazy about this pumpkin coffee cake. Perhaps I didn't make it right, but my version was quite dense. It looks dense in the photo, but it was even denser than that. Dense and moist. No crumbs to worry about falling on the floor. The taste was good, I was just hoping for a lighter texture.

Joanne Choi said...

Leslie -

it is a very moist cake, and somewhat dense but not overly dense. I'm wondering if perhaps you over beat it (making it a bit tough) or perhaps your baking powder was not as fresh as it could be?

I am sorry it didn't work out for you.

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