Coffee Cake

Ingredients

  • 1¼ cup sugar divided
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ cup chopped nuts
  • ¼ pound (113 g) salted butter at cool room temperature
  • 2 eggs at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups (245 g) flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ pint (227 g) sour cream at room temperature

Instructions

  1. Mix ¼ cup sugar with cinnamon and nuts, and set aside.
  2. Cream butter with remaining 1 cup sugar, then add eggs and vanilla and beat well.
  3. Sift flour with baking soda and baking powder. Add to butter, sugar and egg mixture along with ½ pint sour cream.
  4. Grease and flour tube pan. Spread thin layer of batter, then sprinkle with nut mixture. Repeat three times, ending with nut mixture.
  5. Bake at 325°F 50-60 minutes.

Notes

25 July 2024: I made this today for the first time, with some modifications. The amount of filling/topping seemed too little, so I increased it to:

  • 75 g sugar
  • 90 g chopped walnuts
  • 1½ teaspoons cinnamon This ended up making a little too much, and I ended up using about 50 g of filling per layer.

In step 3, I alternated adding the flour with the sour cream (which I had stirred vigorously to smooth it out), like one would normally do when adding flour and milk to a creamed butter and sugar mixture (3 additions of flour mixture alternating with two additions of sour cream).

Each layer of batter was 293 g, alternating with a 50 g layer of filling. I found it easiest to place small dollops of batter all around, and then gently use a spatula to connect them together, and then smooth out the layer.

I baked it in a buttered and floured angel food cake pan that I also lined with parchment on the bottom. Baked on rack 2 for 45 minutes (40 may have been sufficient), and cooled 10 minutes in the pan on a rack before removing the cake from the pan.

13 April 2025: I made this today following the same basic procedure as last time, although I reduced the amount of filling mixture because it was a bit too much last time. Today I used:

  • 65g sugar
  • 85g chopped walnuts
  • 1½ teaspoons cinnamon

This resulted in around 50g for each layer, which worked out well. I did end up sprinkling another handful of chopped walnuts on top just before baking.

As usual, I reduced the sugar to 195g (a full cup would be 200g). Each layer of batter was 294g. I mixed and spread it just like last time. I baked it the same too, except that the total baking time was 41 minutes, 30 seconds. This made for a perfectly baked, moist cake. Like last time, I cooled it for 10 minutes in the pan and then removed it. I let it cool completely on the base of the tube pan before moving it to a cake keeper.