I have had cherry sour cream coffeecake on my to-bake list for a long time now. For some reason, it always gets moved to the bottom of the list. That reason likely has something to do with the fact that I know it would be something that I would have to eat almost by myself. The kids won't touch cherry anything--unless it is a Laffy Taffy and though Aaron might try it, but it wouldn't be something that he wakes up and wants to eat. (For that, we have pie.)
I had been getting tired of waiting to make the coffeecake and decided that in the holiday spirit I would use cranberries instead of cherries. And, to make it slightly healthier (and to avoid a trip to the grocery store), I would use Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. King Arthur Flour's website did the work for me....and came through with a great recipe.
I thought it was great. Dense, not too sweet, a little tart from the cranberries---perfect with a hot cup of coffee, and a quiet house full of sleeping children and dogs. My heaven.
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Cranberry Yogurt Coffeecake
Adapted (barely) from King Arthur Flour
Ingredients:
Topping:
5 tablespoons butter
½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
big pinch of salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 tablespoons All-Purpose Flour
Filling:
1 cup of cranberry sauce (with whole berries). Or, if you have left over from Thanksgiving you could use that.
Cake Batter:
½ cup butter
1 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup (8 ounces) plain Greek yogurt (I use Chobani) [Edited the read, "Greek" rather than "Green" ;)]
¼ teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (King Arthur's website says that using their 100% whole wheat flour will be just as good.)
Step-by-Step:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 X 13 inch pan.
2) Make the topping first by combining dry ingredients with softened (but not too soft) butter. Use a fork to combine until crumbly. Set aside.
3) Make the cake: by creaming together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs until smooth. Beat in the yogurt, vanilla and almond extracts, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and flour. The mixture will be very stiff.
4) Scoop the batter into the prepared pan.
5)In a separate bowl, mix up the cranberry sauce. Here you just want to make sure that the sauce is easy to dollop evenly on the cake batter. I put it in a seperate bowl and just stirred gently with a spoon until the huge cranberry chunks were broken up into smaller cranberry chunks--but still whole berries. Does that make any sense?
6) Put the cranberry on top of the cake batter in nice big dollops. Try to make it even.
8 ) Sprinkle the whole thing with the crumbly topping.
9) Bake for about 40-50 minutes. Let cool before serving. If you serve warm, which is great, prepare for the crumbs to litter your floor.
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Rina says
They look delicious We usually pay 2.75 for a little square at this place downtown Ann Arbor They look like yours:) I believe yours are better 🙂