Wednesday Baking | Cherry Coffeecake
It's a non-yeasty baking post this week, which is probably perfect, given that most of us are a tad busier than usual right about now.
In fact, I chose to make this recipe this past Saturday precisely because I was too busy to mess with a yeast-raised goody.
(or is it goodie? Whenever I go back and forth between "y" and "ie" spellings I always remember the scene in Louisa May Alcott's "The Old-Fashioned Girl" where Polly is refusing to embrace the newly fashionable "ie" endings, and she tells Fanny (Fannie, rather!) indignantly, "Think how Pollie would look spelt so!")
/tangent
Never mind...more tangent thoughts. I loved that book when I was younger, maybe even more than I liked Little Women. I probably would think it's a bit legalistic if I read it again, but what I remember from that book is that what matters in a girl is character, and that all the fluffy "charm" so many girls have is no substitute for it.
Though the book is a classic chick-flick type of story and Polly does get the guy in the end, the guy is ultimately attracted to her because of WHO she is, and I liked that.
Ok, now we really ARE going to get back to baking. Focus, Kristen, focus!
I found this recipe a number of years ago when I was searching for something to bring to our Sunday School class. I happened upon the Land O Lakes website, and decided to give this recipe a try. It's very easy to make, and since it's from Land O Lakes, it contains plenty of dairy goodness.
I do love me some dairy goodness.
I made this early Saturday morning so that it would be ready for the women's prayer meeting that's at my house, so these photos are a little different-looking than usual. Thank goodness for my LightScoop!
Before you get started, turn your oven on to 325 ° F so that it'll be hot by the time your coffeecake is ready to be baked.
To make the dough, cream butter and sugar, add egg and sour cream, and then gently stir in the dry ingredients.
Spread half of the dough into a greased 9x13 inch pan. You'll think there's no way you can possibly do this, but just keep spreading.
Pour a can of cherry pie filling over top of the dough. You could use any other flavor you want, or you could make your own filling, which would probably be more delicious than filling from a can.
A strawberry/raspberry filling would probably be yummy.
The next task is to spread the remaining dough over the filling. This kind of job is always a little bit tricky because a stiff dough doesn't spread too well over a soft filling. So I drop spoonfuls of the dough all over the top of the cherry filling so that the dough is already sort of evenly distributed.
And then I use a table knife to smooth out the dough. I don't think it's possible to do this perfectly neatly, but it's ok...streusel is going to go on top!
To make the streusel, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon, and cut in the cold butter until the mixture is crumbly. The recipe calls for pecans, but I didn't add them this time. I think they'd be delicious, though.
Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the top of the coffeecake.
Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
The cherry filling is super hot when it comes out of the oven, so I definitely recommend letting the coffeecake cool for at least 10-20 minutes before you try to sample it. In fact, the last time I made this, I let it sit out for an hour while we prayed and the filling was still warm then...not burn-your-mouth warm, but definitely not room temperature.
Anyway, if you're impatient and you burn your tongue on the pie filling, don't blame me. I warned you! 😉
Land O Lakes has a printable version of this recipe on their website, so I won't bother making and uploading a PDF for you.
Cherry Coffecake
1 cup sugar
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 (21-ounce) can cherry pie filling
Streusel Ingredients:
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
Instructions:
Heat oven to 325 °F.
Cream 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter in large mixer bowl. Add sour cream, eggs and vanilla; beat until smooth.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture, and beat on low speed until dough is smooth (don't overdo the mixing here).
Spread half of batter into greased and floured 13x9-inch baking pan. Spoon cherry pie filling over batter. Spoon remaining batter over pie filling; spread carefully.
In a small bowl, combine ¼ cup flour, ¼ cup sugar, pecans and cinnamon. Cut in 3 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle streusel over coffeecake. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
This recipe looks delicious! One I will be trying in the near future. Thanks! 🙂
I was looking for something to take to a family gathering on Saturday and this is perfect! Is it ok at room temp or is it best if the filling is still warm?
Oh, it's fine at room temperature! We had no difficulty eating it later in the day. 🙂
Yum! Our cake would have to be dairy free which is easy to do except for sour cream - could you recommend a substitute?
Hmmm...I wonder what could work! My first thought is to sub a dairy-free yogurt for the sour cream because regular yogurt can be subbed for sour cream.
Better than Sour Cream is available...it is a vegan version.
thanks kristen! I am glad you said that other fillings would work, I am not a big fan of cherries! Might have to make this one!
(I made your chocolate cheese cake, yum!! and will make again for my sil for xmas eve!)
I don't know. I think you might still like An Old-Fashioned Girl. I've never found it particularly stuffy unlike Little Women which I've always felt was very preachy. Old-Fashioned Girl is actually one of my favorite books still and I'm a former homeschool kid who now has piercings and tattoos and likes to travel around the world 😉 I'd also suggest giving Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom a try as your girls get older and seeing what you think! In my opinion Old-Fashioned Girl and Rose in Bloom are Louisa May Alcott's best books.
Yep, I read both of those multiple times. And I also remember reading an even more obscure LMA book...it seemed like it followed a bunch of young people, but I can't remember what it was called!
QUestion - do you think you could mix up this recipe the night before and then bake it in the morning?? I am looking for things I could mix the night before and then throw into the oven on CHristmas morning. 🙂
Thanks!
I'm not sure about that...I think that baking soda and baking powder sometimes don't fare well after a night in the fridge. Usually when I want to do some prep ahead for this type of dish I mix the dry ingredients together and the wet ingredients together, and then combine them in the morning. That might be a bit trickier with this one, though, because the butter needs to be creamed.
Several of my yeast recipes are GREAT for making the night before, though.
I love, Love, LOVE cherries and will definitely be bookmarking this. many thanks!
Kristen,
I'm not much of a cherry fan (I like them fresh and not cooked - weird), but this does look delicious.
You should sub another filling then, so you can enjoy this! lol Go with peach or apple or blueberry or something.
Recipe looks wonderful (yours always do), but I like your literary tangent more 🙂 Lovers of 19th century novels, unite!
I'm so glad at least a few people weren't bored to tears by my tangent. lol
Looks delicious! I love warm coffee cake and a mug of cocoa! I can't wait to try it!
Yum! Looks AMAZING!
Wow, there's a LMA book I never read! I thought I read them all when I was a girl. Little Men, Eight Cousins, etc. Now I'll have to see if I can get the Old Fashioned Girl from the library.
Elder daughter loved them too and did her junior year (high school) term paper on Louisa May Alcott. LMA's independent spirit really spoke to her.
I recently (past 6 months) saw a PBS documentary on LMA. The most unexpected fact: LMA ran. Some periods she was too busy to do anything but sleep, eat, write ... an run. I want to know how and why she did it. Why did she start as a little girl and what made her keep it up as an adult. It is a gross understatement to say that was an unusual activity then. What did she wear while she ran? Did she bathe after each run? Did she wear corsets? How far and how fast did she run? What was her family's reaction to this odd, likely unbecoming pastime?
So interesting. I can't imagine running in a corset!
I was a professional baker and snicker doodles are still great this time of year too. I will bake that soon.
It used to puzzle me when I saw recipes like this called 'coffee' cake. In England, coffee cake is cake containing coffee as an ingredient and flavour. Now it makes me smile!
The recipe looks delicious, thanks!
Yeah, for some reason in America we call it coffeecake because you're supposed to drink it with coffee.
I hate coffee, though, so my baked goods are never exactly coffeecake. 😉 Maybe teacake?
This looks great. Might have to give it a try over the holidays. Have you ever posted a breakfast casserole? Need something I can put together Christmas eve and put in the oven while the kids are opening gifts Christmas morning. I've already got a couple ideas, but you always have great recipes.
I've made a similar coffee cake, and we like to add a layer of cream cheese underneath the pie filling. One brick of softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, one egg, 1 tsp vanilla. Mix together and spread on the first half of the dough, then continue with the pie filling, etc. (That's the same recipe to mix up a layer of cream cheese for brownies, too. We wait until cream cheese is on the Dollar sale and we stock up!)
I also cheat a bit on the top layer of dough and I stir an extra tablespoon or 2 of milk into it before I try to put in on top of the fillings.
My daughters are coming home from college this weekend, and this cherry coffecake is one of their favorites, so I'll be making it next week!! I think we're planning to spend the next 2 weeks cooking every single thing that they liked while growing up. Healthy eating can wait til January!
Thanks for the recipe! Somehow seeing your food posts inspires me to actually bake/cook. I made this today and my boys and I are sitting by the fire enjoying it with a cup of tea. (no coffee cake in this house either!) My husband will be so impressed when he gets home.
I found the tip about spreading the batter on top especially useful. I don't think I could have spread it around enough without dropping it in blobs.
Merry Christmas!
I made this recipe tonight and subbed two items: first, raspberrry for cherry, and second, thickened milk for sour cream.
I didn't have sour cream on hand, but it is easy to "sour" your own cream by adding a tablespoon or two of vinegar to milk and letting it sit five or ten minutes. The milk sours and gets thick and can easily be used as a substitute.
The results were very good.
That's a great tip - I've never heard of it before. Thank you!
That looks delicious! What a great recipe that seems very easy to make.