Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Hello hello hello friends. How was your weekend?

It sure was cold here in Los Angeles and despite it being sunny in West LA, it was hailing and snowing in the Valley just 10 minutes from me. Freaky weather I tell you!

 
Like I mentioned on Friday, I spent Saturday with my Brosky and Co. in Pasadena at the Norton Simon Museum.

How Picasso gets this from....

this, I'll never know!

After getting our culture on, we headed back over the hill (and snow/slush) to my apartment where I cooked a semi-successful dinner of chicken rice. For dessert, Sarah brought over some very delicious Almond cookies dipped in dark chocolate and I had some leftover Sour Cream Coffee Cake that I had baked for a brunch last week.

After rebuffing the Almond Cookies for being too Almond-y, my nephew had a piece of the Coffee Cake and, in between mouthfuls of it, declared that I needed to give him the recipe for it!

As a wanna-be chef, there is nothing that makes me happier! So, my dear dear sweet Luca, here is the recipe for that Coffee Cake.

Ingredients
Streusel
1/2 cup pecan pieces
6 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Cake
2 cups sour cream
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons minced fresh orange zest
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 lb (or 2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10 inch Bundt pan.

2. Scatter the pecan pieces evenly around the bottom of the Bundt pan. Combine the brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, and the nutmeg into a small bowl. Sprinkle half the streusel mixture evenly over the pecans, reserve the rest.

3. Whisk sour cream, eggs, vanilla extract, and orange zest in a bowl. In another bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt and remaining cinnamon.

4. With an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light. Pour in the sour cream mixture about 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the flour mixture, about a third at a time, stopping to scrape the bowl after each addition and beating until well combined. The batter will be THICK. Spoon about 1/3 of the batter into the Bundt pan. Leave the surface rather uneven and sprinkle in the remaining streusel mixture. Now spoon in the remaining batter and smooth the surface.

5. Bake on the oven's middle rack for 55 to 60 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cake for 10 mins in the pan. Then run a knife around the edges and remove from pan by inverting it. Finish cooling top side up on a baking rack. Cool for at least 10 mins before slicing.

Cake keeps well for several days when tightly covered.

Recipe from The Real American Breakfast by Cheryl Alters Jamison & Bill Jamison.

Monkey Bread

Growing up in Singapore, I'd never come across Monkey Bread, yet alone heard of it. I first encountered the idea of Monkey Bread when a good friend mentioned that her step-mom makes a killer monkey bread. Killer? Monkey? What? I was intrigued.

This past Christmas season, I decided that it was the perfect time to take this 'mysterious' Monkey Bread into the kitchen. Let me tell you, Monkey Bread, worth the hype! The results were simply delicious (almost sinful) and the smell alone is to die for.

Ingredients:

2 Cans of Buttermilk Biscuits (Non-Flaky Ones)

1 cup Sugar

2 Teaspoons Cinnamon

1 stick of Butter

1/4 cup Brown Sugar

A Bundt Pan

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Open both cans of biscuits and cut each biscuit into quarters.

In a 1 gallon ziplock bag, combine 1 cup regular sugar with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. Shake to mix.

Drop all of the quartered biscuits into the zip lock bag. Seal and shake vigorously to coat each individual piece with cinnamon-sugar. Don't worry if you have extra cinnamon-sugar, that's okay.

Arrange pieces in your bundt pan and build layers as you go. Some recipes called for greasing your pan but I figured that since I was going to drown the biscuits in a gallon of butter (see next step), I would be safe.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt the stick of butter with 1/4 cup of brown sugar (light or dark). Stir over medium heat until well mixed. Pour mixture over layered biscuits.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is a deep dark brown. Cool for 15 minutes before turning out onto a plate. Pull apart (or if you want to be civilized, use utensils) and enjoy!