One of my favourite cakes to make when guests come over is coffee cake, it fills the house with a lovely scent of cinnamon. Every time someone visits they tell me how cozy my house is, I wonder if it’s the house or the aroma coming from the kitchen.
I like to make my coffee cakes with apples, it makes it even more moist and delicious. I have another recipe posted on the blog apple-streusel-coffee-cake that I love, but I wanted to make another cake that was more cinnamon-y and uses brown sugar. I came across this recipe on Buzzfeed, the link was down but I did find it.
One thing you should know about me is that I am sensitive to textures, anything grainy or chalky will not do. I find Greek yogurt to be very chalky and undesirable to the palate. I grew up on homemade yogurt and I make it myself till this day, when I do buy yogurt it’s Balkan style it’s the closest to homemade silky and smooth, not sure if you have that in the States. The reason I mention this is because the other recipe uses Greek yogurt however, the original from Emeril Lagasse uses sour cream. I rarely have sour cream, so I used plain yogurt.
Another difference is I used light tasting olive oil for the crumb, as I have mentioned before that my mom grew up in Sweden for sometime and lived in Holland for 7 years and learned how to make the best dutch-apple-pie. She used vegetable oil but since we have been avoiding many ingredients these pasts years, we now use olive oil for our baking needs. I never use extra virgin olive oil for my baking, it is too strong. She doesn’t really know why they used oil over butter, either way it tastes amazing. It works out better for me as well, since one of the ingredients my husband avoids as much as he can is butter.
Next time I make this I will try baking it with olive oil, I will let you know how that works out.
My mom is the crumb queen, she was here when I was making this, it was her suggestion to add a few sprinkles of flour at the end so you end up with the perfect texture.
One other thing I should mention is that I use dark brown sugar in almost all my baking, I grew up with it and love the flavour of it. Light brown sugar does nothing for me, I don’t bother buying it even when recipes ask for it. You can use light brown sugar if you prefer it over dark. I have never tried dark brown sugar from the States, Canadian dark brown sugar makes everything delicious!
Adaptation from damndelicious
What you will need:
- 2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda - 1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup or 1 stick softened unsalted butter
1 and 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 pkt of vanilla sugar
1 cup plain yogurt such as Balkan style or Greek yogurt
Topping:
- 3 small to medium sized apples, thinly sliced
Crumb Topping:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup unpacked brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup light tasting olive oil
2 and 1/2 cups flour + a couple sprinkles near the end
Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9 x 13 inch pan.
Make crumb topping first, combine the sugar, oil, cinnamon and flour, I used my hands to make it, you can use a spoon or whisk if you desire, but hands work best. Sprinkle in a little flour at the end, oil is different than butter so you need that extra flour to get the correct texture.
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another mixing bowl using the paddle attachment if using your Kitchen Aid mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy about 2 to 3 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time until combined. Add in the vanilla.
On low speed, add in the yogurt and dry ingredients in three parts, begin and end with the dry ingredients. Beat only until incorporated, do not over beat batter.
Pour batter into baking pan, spread the apple slices evenly over the batter and top with crumb topping. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Enjoy!
Gave this recipe a whirl the other day and it turned out great! Thank you so much – Marty