Kitchen Attempts

Here’s a quick post to end my hiatus.

Am on vacation visiting my siblings and now have all the time to write and blog, so no more excuses.

For now, here’s a recipe that my sister and I tried out this afternoon. We chose the recipe from a cookbook that I sent her on her birthday. Although I’ve never tried the famous Magnolia cupcakes, I’ve heard only good things about them and figured that this cookbook would be a good one to have.

The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

We wanted to make something quick and simple so we chose the recipe for a coffee cake.  Coffee cakes don’t need to contain coffee, but are meant to be served with the caffeine-filled drink.  The recipe we found called for a poppy seed filling but since we didn’t have any poppy seeds, we altered the recipe. Instead of a plain flavored cake, we added some coffee to it. Coffee flavored coffee cake? Why not?

The cake was very dense and had a nice subtle coffee flavor, making it like a mocha chiffon cake.  One thing my sister and I both noticed was that even after baking the cake for it’s required time, there was a raw flour taste to it.  We couldn’t quite figure out why this was and thought that maybe the recipe could have used half a teaspoon of baking soda to make the cake rise more. Other than that, this cake was slightly addicting and could easily be tomorrow’s breakfast.

COFFEE CAKE

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, separated at room temperature
• 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening (I am particularly opposed to using shortening so we substituted with butter)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup milk (instead of using all milk, I used 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup brewed coffee)
• 1 twelve ounce can poppy filling (we didn’t use this for this recipe)

NOTE: It is best to separate the eggs when cold and then allow them to come to room temperature before proceeding with this recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line an 8 x 8 x 2-inch squared pan with waxed paper.

To prepare the coffee cake: In a medium-size bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks, about 1 minute.

In a large bowl, on the low speed of an electric mixer, cream the shortening and the sugar until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the egg yolks. Add the dry ingredients in two parts, alternating with the milk. In a separate bowl, on the high speed of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Batter will be thick and doughlike.

Meanwhile, prepare the topping: In a small bowl, mix together the flour, the brown sugar, and the baking powder. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Pour the batter into prepared pan. Make indentations with the back of a spoon and press teaspoonfuls of the poppy filling into each indentation.  Sprinkle the topping over cake. Bake 40-45 minutes or until cake tester comes out with moist crumbs attached.  Do not over bake.

Allow to cool for 20 minutes before cutting and serving.

*After re-reading and typing the entire recipe, I now realize what went wrong. There was a raw flour taste because the cake was indeed, half-cooked. I made the mistake of baking it for only 20 minutes and not 45 minutes. NOT FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS!!! Don’t make the same mistake as I did and read carefully