2015-09-11

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

My Mom was a very good cook. Her Pot Roast, Beef Stew, Stuffed Peppers, Fondue, and Turkey dinners were divine.  But a baker, she was not. We won't talk about her Peanut Butter Fudge that never set and every time you cut a square, would smooth back over as if you'd never taken any. Or the No-Bake Cookies she made on the portable dishwasher--which she then ran--literally baking the cookies to the top of it.

But she had one baked good that was sent from heaven...her German (or as we called it) Sour Cream Coffee Cake.  The recipe was originally my Aunt Patty's, but my mother owned it!  As I hold her vanilla-stained, sugar-encrusted recipe card, I can see her making this, and smell it in the oven. I miss her so much my heart aches.

So I post this today for you Jeffrey...for she loved your visit, and the baklava and marzipan you brought from NY, and the buttermilk fried chicken you made during your stay. Happy Birthday, my basement.

German Sour Cream Coffee Cake


Ingredients

Cake

  • 3/4 cups Cooking Oil
  • 1.5 cups Sugar
  • 3 Eggs
  • 3 cups Flour
  • 1.5 tsp Baking Soda
  • 1.5 tsp Baking Powder
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1.5 tsp Vanilla
  • 1 pt (16 oz) Sour Cream
Brown Sugar Mixture

  • 3/4 cups Brown Sugar
  • 1.5 tsp Cinnamon
  • 1.5 tsp Nutmeg
  • 1/2 cups crushed Walnuts

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, mix oil, sugar, eggs. 
  3. In a second bowl, sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
  4. Mix dry ingredients alternately with sour cream into the oil mixture.
  5. Add vanilla and mix all well.
  6. Pour half of batter into a bundt pan (prepared pan I assume, although recipe doesn't say).
  7. Sprinkle half of Brown Sugar Mixture in a circle around center of cake batter.
  8. Add rest of batter to bundt pan.
  9. Sprinkle remaining Brown Sugar Mixture on top.
  10. Bake for 1 hour.