Day 5 with Rose: Sour Cream Coffee Cake

When I'm home alone, I bake.  It's what I do to relax; it's how I treat myself; it's what I do to feel grounded.  Amidst my mixing bowls and baking pans, I am content.

On occasion I'll have a friend over and we'll bake together.  A dear friend from school has been reading my blog and expressed an interest in learning how to bake.  Two weekends ago, she came over for an afternoon of baking.  She is a novice, and we had a lot of catching up to do.  So I chose something simple: a cobbler.  Nothing quite says home like a freshly baked cobbler. It is warm, inviting, and satisfying.  The cobbler is also a very forgiving dessert: you can mix and match just about any variety of stone fruit or berry that you want, and no one ever minds what it ends up looking like.  After all, any way that it's cobbled together, the fruit and crust end up mingling, the crust absorbing the juices from the fruit.  We served our mixed berry cobbler topped with a generous serving of vanilla bean ice cream after a meal of Bombay-style chicken with red split lentils.  

But, by and large, baking is a solitary activity for me.  Today is no exception, although I am home alone out of necessity more than desire: I have temporarily lost my voice.  I cancel my plans and decide to bake instead.  Day 5 with Rose is a lesson on breakfast cakes.

I don't know what clever soul coined the phrase "breakfast cake," but I am eternally grateful, because it allows me to eat cake for breakfast without any pangs of guilt.  Today I make a sour cream coffee cake.  Ever since I visited Levain Bakery and devoured their coffee cake, I've been eager to bake my very own.

This particular sour cream coffee cake recipe is one of Rose's favorites.  The cake is moist and buttery, with a dark middle layer of cinnamon filling, and a sweet, crunchy streusel topping of sugar, butter, and ground walnuts.  

My first attempt at making the cake is rather disastrous.  Rose's recipe calls for the use of a cake pan.  I, however, want a coffee cake in the shape of a loaf.  So I use my loaf pan instead.  But it holds less volume than my cake pan, and yet knowing that, I pour the entire batter into the loaf pan because there is still room left in the pan once I'm done (granted, the pan is nearly full).  An hour into baking, the center of the cake is wet and the edges are starting to overcook.  I am running late for an appointment.  I turn off my oven and reluctantly abandon my under-done cake.  Lesson learned: don't overfill your cake pan.  If the pan is too small for the amount of batter on hand, use the remaining batter to make cupcakes.  If I'd had the presence of mind, that's what I would have done.

My second attempt yields a perfectly baked cake, although the streusel topping lacks the characteristic crumbly texture and some of the filling has sunk to the bottom of the cake.  I may have overmixed the ingredients for both the filling and topping: I recall they held together too well and had to be plopped onto the batter rather than sprinkled.  The cake, though, tastes delicious.  And what's a better way to start the day than with a generous slice of cake?

  

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Recipe from The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Streusel topping and filling
1/3 cup light brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup walnuts or pecans
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup unsifted cake flour (dip and sweep method)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Batter
4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 cup sugar 

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter 

Streusel topping and filling

In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, pulse the sugars, nuts and cinnamon until the nuts are coarsely chopped. Reserve 3/4 cup to use as a filling.  To the remainder add the flour, butter, and vanilla and pulse briefly to form a coarse, crumbly mixture for the topping.

Batter
In a medium bowl, lightly combine the yolks, about 1/4 of the sour cream, and vanilla. 

In a large mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to combine.  Add the butter and remaining sour cream.  Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened.  Increase to medium speed and beat for 1 1/2 minutes to aerate and develop the cake’s structure.  Scrape down the sides.  Gradually add the egg mixture in 3 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition to incorporate the ingredients.  Scrape down the sides.

Reserve about 1/3 of the batter and scrape the rest into the prepared pan.*  Smooth the surface with a spatula.  Sprinkle with the streusel filling.  Drop the reserved batter in large blobs and spread evenly with the spatula.  Sprinkle with the streusel topping and bake for 55-60 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cover loosely with buttered foil after 45 minutes to prevent overbrowning. 

*One 9-inch springform pan, greased, bottom lined with parchment, and then greased again and floured.

Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Loosen the sides with a small metal spatula and remove the sides of the springform pan. Cool completely before wrapping airtight. Serve at room temperature. 

Birthday Sweets (Bakery Crawl NYC)

our guide for Bakery  Crawl NYC

To celebrate my birthday, Greg and I went on a sweet adventure: a bakery crawl.  We visited five of the top bakeries in NYC, sampling sweets from each.

Stop #1 was Bien Cuit, an artisanal bakery which features authentic French staples like baguettes and croissants alongside dainty tarts.  The name translates to "well done," a term that the French often use to describe the darkest of their crunchy loaves.  It's an apt name for this bakery, where the breads and pastries -- baked to the point of well-done-ness -- have a deep brown sheen to them.  

The tantalizing aroma of fresh-baked treats greeted us as soon as we stepped in, which is no wonder since all of the baking occurs on-site.  Greg and I shared a double-baked almond croissant, which was nothing short of perfection.  The deep brown edges of the croissant lent an almost-burnt quality to its taste, which was perfectly balanced by the generous sprinkle of powdered sugar that coated the entire surface.   The layers inside were rich and buttery and filled with almond slivers and a velvety almond creme.  The shell of the croissant cracked into shards when I bit into it, and I took care to scoop up each piece that fell onto my plate.

Our next step was Crespella, an Italian creperie (the name translates to "stuffed pancake" in Italian).  The creperie is a teeny-tiny establishment with a surprisingly large menu (the menu takes up an entire back wall) boasting upwards of a few dozen varieties of crepes, both sweet and savory.  We were really tempted to get a sweet crepe (we could have chosen from amongst nutella, marmalade, cannoli, and peanut butter, to name a few!) but instead decided on two savory ones: for me, the zucchini, onions, pepper, and balsamico crepe; and for Greg, the scrambled egg, provolone, and pancetta crepe.  The savory crepes at Crespella are made with gluten-free chickpea flour, something we were both intrigued by; we also were beginning to crave some protein to stave off our hunger pangs.  

My dish was artfully served: the vegetables were neatly folded into the crepe, and topping it were a few chopped pieces and a drizzle of balsamico.  I admired the crepe long enough to snap a photo and then devoured it.  The crepe itself was thicker than I expected but cooked perfectly, and the hearty meal was just what we needed to get to our next destination: Levain Bakery.

Levain Bakery is perhaps most famous for its cookies.  This wee bit of a bakery churns out chunky, hocky-puck-size chocolate walnut, oatmeal raisin, and dark chocolate, chocolate cookies.  But what drew us there was the sourdough roll.  On the outside, the roll appears modest: it is lightly freckled with a crisp crust.  But looks can be deceiving: bite into the roll and you'll discover, tucked into its nooks, melted Valrhona dark chocolate.  Or so we learned on Unique Sweets.  By the time Greg and I arrived at Levain, around noon, the rolls were all sold out.  We were terribly disappointed.  

To appease ourselves, we dug into their sour cream coffee cake.  Unlike a typical sour cream cake with a streusel topping, Levain's version has a pocket of cinnamon-brown sugar swirl, in the shape of a smile, adorning the bottom edge of the cake.  This cake was generously sliced and moist and delicious.  It was bitterly cold out, so Greg and I snagged two seats along the short counter to enjoy the cake.  There was a constant buzz of activity in the bakery, with customers traipsing in, eager smiles on their faces; staff on hand taking orders; and bakers concentrated on their trade, removing trays out of the oven.

There was a constant line out the door, so to make room for others, we soon left to make our way to our fourth stop of the day: Petrossian.  The Petrossian Boutique & Cafe is housed on the ground floor of an ornate terra-cotta clad building in the French Renaissance style.  Inside, the boutique is cheery, with an assortment of jams, breads, pastries, and mini cookies lining the bakery counter.  On the wall directly opposite are Petrossian's signature caviar, smoked fish, and other fine foods (Petrossian also runs a restaurant).  Up the steps towards the back of the store is a small but comfortable seating area where breakfast, light lunches, and tea are served.  

Greg and I decided we would have tea and a tart and nestled into a table for two.  We ordered the blueberry tart.  Sweet blueberries and a few giant blackberries were packed inside a golden tart shell.  Sandwiched in-between was a thin layer of marzipan filling, gooey and slightly nutty.  Candied orange shavings added a bright, citrus accent.  Each bite was a new revelation.  The depth of flavors was pretty astounding.  But it was the shell -- buttery, flaky, and tender -- that stole the show.

Warmed from the tea, we headed to Francois Payard.  This, we decided, would be our last stop of the day.  It was nearing late afternoon, and we still had to get ready (and leave room in our bellies!) for our celebratory dinner.  Greg had made dinner reservations for us at a restaurant in SoHo.  The legendary pastry chef's bakery has a charming interior, with a chalkboard menu adorning one wall, and on the other wall, tall shelves displaying packaged macarons, jams, and cookies, and even an antique stand mixer.  

We shared Le Gateau Roule, or the sponge cake roll.  Alternating layers of chocolate cake, raspberry preserve, and smooth chocolate cream were rolled to form a decadently moist roule.  The outermost layer was a dark chocolate ganache, imparting a silky sheen and intensely rich flavor to the roll.  Crunchy chocolate meringue rolls dotted the top of the roll.  It was exquisite.  We were sad to leave.


We ate a delicious dinner and decided to skip dessert, only to head home and eat the roasted pear, caramel, and hazelnut tart that we had taken to-go earlier in the day from Bien Cuit.  As soon as I blew out the birthday candle, we reached for a fork.  I can't think of a dreamier combination of textures and flavors than this tart.  An intensely sweet, smooth caramel filling sat in a pate sucree crust that was baked to perfection, tender yet crisp.  Slivers of roasted pear, nestled in the tart, retained their succulence, and the toasted hazelnuts added some crunch.  It was sublime.  Greg and I were fighting to lick the caramel off the fork.  And that is how we ended this sweet day.  Really, there is no better way to celebrate a birthday than with a sweet dessert and even sweeter company.