21/99: Chocolate Streusel Coffee Cake

 

The Chocolate Streusel Coffee Cake was not in the plan for the day, but as I have a test tomorrow and had only a short time to prepare a cake, the chocolate streusel coffee cake it was.  I think it turned out to be a great choice too.  Easy to prep, easy to make, common ingredients, and a breakfast style cake that makes everyone feel at home.  At least I did.

It was actually quite funny how at home I felt.  I was invited to my church's fellowship group at someone's home and had permission to come early to use the oven.  Of course I'm the new girl / visitor to the church so I hardly know anyone at this group.  Anyway, everyone starts arriving one by one and here I am, the new girl, just cooking away as if I'd been there forever. I don't know if it was the cake or the kindness of everyone that I met (or maybe a combination of the two) but like I said, I definitely felt at home. 

So for the cake- 

First you mix up the filling. Brown sugar, cocoa powder, and cinnamon. So easy. I only had dark brown sugar instead of light brown but I think it was fine. The filling definitely made a statement and I think the light brown would have probably toned it down (note for next time) but it worked fine for tonight.

 Then you start on the batter. It really was easy as well. First you beat your butter for a couple minutes until it gets incredibly creamy.

Then you slowly add in a cup of superfine sugar over the course of a few minutes while the mixer is still running on medium high. 

 Honestly, anything with a base of that much butter and sugar has got to be good.  I think I could have eaten just that mixture:

Then you add the eggs and vanilla to give the cake some structure and some flavor. 

Finally mix in your dry ingredients and you have a very creamy batter, ready to be put into the oven!

Of course, if you've been reading along, I don't have a working oven yet. As I mentioned, I had the pleasure of using a new friend's oven so this cake worked perfect for transporting since the batter is pretty basic and won't fall in the transport since it's 99 degrees outside and unbearably humid.  After the cake was baked, it seemed to go over pretty well.   Everyone was incredibly kind and they humored me by eating up every last piece. Even Pat, the Mayor of Oxford, had a slice!

 

The recipe said to make two cupcakes out of the batter because apparently the recipe made too much.  You use the remaining batter in the actual cake.  Maybe my pan was too big or something, but I really didn't see the point of that. I think it would have been even better to put those two cupcakes worth of batter into the cake to make it even bigger.

One man at the gathering commented that this would be a great Christmas present to give to people on Christmas Eve so that they can have a nice Christmas morning coffee cake. I really like that idea.  It definitely feels like a breakfast cake and would be easy to make in bulk.

So tasting results:

Everyone seemed to like it. I liked it but thought the filling was a bit too strong. It kind of reminded me of the french pastry "pain du chocolat" though which was a nice memory. One of my friends, the faithful one who has tried 4 cakes in the past 2 weeks, said she liked it but it probably wasn't her favorite out of those four. I agree with her. It was good but as far as coffee cakes go, I think I prefer the apple cinnamon crumb coffee cake. I'll eat a piece or two of the chocolate streusel coffee cake, but as i mentioned in the apple crumb cake post, I'd gladly eat that whole cake in one sitting.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
Chocolate Streusel Filling- pate 55
Batter- page 55