Cinnamon Walnut Coffee Cake

Today we went to go visit our friends Bernard and Elizabeth who have a new 2-week-old baby boy.  We wanted to bring them lunch as well as this coffee cake.  This recipe came from my favorite baking cook book, The Art and Soul of Baking which I've written about in past posts.

The novel thing about this coffee cake is that the streusel adds cocoa powder to the cinnamon, which doesn't give it a chocolate flavor but gives it a richer flavor.  The streusel crumb was dry and fine since there is no butter in it, but worked well.  The cake was huge -- it rose so high in the bundt pan.  I should have taken a before-baking picture to show how high.  The cake was delicious!

Cinnamon Coffee Cake

Coffee Cake
Streusel
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped and toasted

Cake
3 cups (15 oz) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks (8 oz) butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
16 oz sour cream

Preheat to 350.  Place oven rack in lower 1/3 of oven.
Grease and flour a 10" tube pan.

Streusel: Mix brown sugar, cinnamon, cocoa until well-blended and even texture.  Add the walnuts and stir to blend.

Cake:

1. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt in a small bowl.
2. Blend butter and sugar with a mixer until very light in color (4-5 minutes).
3. Beat eggs and vanilla extract. Add to the butter mixture with mixer running, 1 Tbsp at a time.
4. With mixer running, add 1/3 of flour, 1/2 of sour cream, 1/3 of flour, 1/2 of sour cream, and last 1/3 of flour, blending well after each addition.
5. Spoon half the cake batter into prepared tube pan.  Sprinkle half the streusel over the batter.  Add the remaining batter to the pan and level off. Sprinkle with the 2nd half of streusel.
6. Bake for 60-65 minutes.  Cool on rack for 30-60 minutes before removing.

Will keep well at room temperature for 4 days.