Sour Cream Coffee Cake w/ Chocolate Swirl

coffee cake meets coffee

You should NOT make this recipe IF you:

-are on a diet

-don’t love a moist cake

-aren’t a HUGE fan of crumble topping

-don’t enjoy toasted pecans

-can’t stand cinnamon

-can’t be trusted with an entire pan of coffee cake

I wish I had a warning like this this before I made this cake. I ate more of it that I had planned to!  And to think that I thought portioning some for the neighbors would have been a enough! Little did I know that I couldn’t be trusted with ANY of this cake. One piece was a gateway drug. Suddenly I found myself standing in the kitchen with a spoon scooping out cake like it was going out of style. I totally caught Casey doing the same thing.  I really couldn’t get enough and my stomach never signaled my brain to say it was full! Damn stomach! How dare you! Coffee cake is seriously the best excuse to have cake for breakfast. Agreed?

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure you have people to share this with. It makes a TON.  And if you don’t, please don’t blame me for your 5 lb weight gain. Blame the Baked cookbook for giving us such an incredible recipe! I totally warned you. Learn how to control your appetite, dammit.

There are three steps to this cake:

1. The Crumble

2. The Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl

3. The Sour Cream Cake

First make your crumble!

It consists of sugar, flour, toasted pecans, salt

starting crumble

and BUTTER!

crumble work

Here is the sandy crumble after a few pulses. I could eat it directly from the bowl. For serious.

i could eat you with a spoon

The chocolate cinnamon swirl mixture takes like 2 seconds to make. Here it is.

cinnamon swirlybix

Now we start with the cake. Cream some butter.

buttering

Add sugar and then the eggs!

egging

Indulge yourself with full fat sour cream. DO IT. Mix in the vanilla!

sour cream vanilla!

The flour goes in a bit at a time. Then you are done with the cake batter.

insert flour here

Spread first layer of batter in your lubed baking dish. Top with cinnamon swirl mixture.  I kinda skimped. Oops.

adding swirly

After you finished the layering/swirl steps, top the cake with crumble. There’s a healthy amount!

crumble top

Out of the oven…and it looks like this!

out of the oven

Immediately give some away!

for skampy!

And then save a few slices.

danger

Then eat some! For breakfast, lunch and dinner!

breakfast!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl

recipe from Baked:New Frontiers in Baking

For the Crumb Topping:

  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup pecans, toasted
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1 inch cubes

For the Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl:

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon dark unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the Sour Cream Cake:

  • 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, soft but cool, cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 2 1/4 cups sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 16 ounces sour cream
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Make the Crumb Topping:

Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse for 5 seconds to mix. Add the pecans and pulse until the pecans are finely chopped and thoroughly incorporated.

Add the butter and pulse until combined. The mixture will look like very coarse sand. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the fridge.

Make the Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl:

In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon and set aside.

Make the Sour Cream Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9×13 baking pan, If you use a metal pan, the edges of the cake will be crispy. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl.

In a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth and ribbon-like. Scrape down the bowl and add the sugar. Beat until the mixture is smooth and starts to look fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the bowl and mix again for 30 seconds.

Add the sour cream and vanilla and beat just until incorporated. Add the dry ingredients in three additions, scraping down the bowl before each addition and beating only until each addition is just incorporated. Do not over mix.

Pour one third of the cake batter in the prepared pan. Using an offset spatula to spread the batter evenly.

Sprinkle half of the chocolate cinnamon swirl mixture over the batter, covering the entire surface of the batter. Spoon half of the remaining batter over the swirl mixture and spread it evenly. Top with the remaining swirl mixture then the remaining batter and spread the batter evenly. Sprinkle the crumb topping over the top of the batter.

Bake in the center of the oven, rotating the pan three times during baking for 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then serve.

The cake will keep for 3 days, tightly covered at room temperature.  If it lasts that long…

  • Ann

    AWESOME and Mouth watering picture. Love the recipe! I bet it tasted sooo Yummilicious.

  • The Duo Dishes

    It looks huuuuuuuuuuuge! The downfall of cooking a lot is having so many leftovers. Good thing you had a few neighbors to gift!

    • Tracy

      yes incredibly HUGE! A family of three is not big enough to consume this 🙂 I should take it to a cafe and have them sell it next time! haha

  • Dana

    Good to know that is such a great recipe. I have eyed it several times. That would actually be a good one for me to make since I don’t really like nuts – I might only have 3 pieces. 🙂

    • Tracy

      you don’t like nuts?!! that’s nuts! I bet this would be good for your customers- it makes a HUGE amount!

  • taca

    Hello! I am a big fan of yours but i have yet to post a response, i am always anxious to attempt to make your delicious creations. Loved the Southwestern Pizza (i believe that was the name).. it was amazing. I am wondering about what camera you use, the photographs are very clear! If you don’t mind telling me the name of the camera and the model i’d appreciate it because my daughter is graduating this year from college and i’d like to buy her a good camera! thank you, tamara!

  • Anna

    Oooh, that looks delish!

    Am I being dense though? Where is the coffee?

  • Anna

    Oh I see! That’s a new one on me! Anyway, I found this when I was looking for a coffee cake (made with coffee) but I made this anyway and OH MY GOODNESS it’s NICE. VERY NICE. And also very large. But I can cope with that, because it is so very nice.

    • Tracy

      haha! it is HUGE! I am wishing I froze some so I could enjoy some right now. It’s very very nice 🙂

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  • Karrey

    I made this over the weekend, and they were delightful! I took your advice to make sure I had plenty of people to share it with, so I made it to take to my weekend clinical class. They loved it, but I was STILL left with too many leftovers!

    Also, is it just me, or is the cake batter always better than the cake?

  • Edwin Borrero

    Hey, thanks for the post.Much thanks again. Awesome.

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