Macrina Bakery & Café's Fresh Fruit Coffee Cake
Makes 1 bundt cake
This is what weekend mornings are made for. Shuffle into the
kitchen in your pajamas and mix up this recipe while the coffee brews.
Pop the pan in the oven, pour a cup of java, grab the paper from the
front porch, and crawl back into bed until the aroma of fresh coffee
cake draws you back into the kitchen. Need I say more? To make the best
possible cake, use fresh fruit picked at the height of its growing
season.
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups ripe fruit (whole berries or fruit cut into 1/2-inch pieces)
12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
Edible flowers and powdered sugar, for garnish (optional)
Preheat oven to 350º F. Oil a 12-cup bundt pan.
Sift flour, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and toss with
your hands to combine. Remove 1/4 cup of the flour mixture and set bowl
aside.
In a separate medium bowl, combine fruit and the reserved 1/4 cup of
flour mixture. Toss until fruit is evenly coated, and set aside. Tossing
the fruit in flour helps keep it from sinking to the bottom of the
coffee cake--a true disaster!
Combine butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar in the bowl of your
stand mixer. Mix with the paddle attachment for 5-8 minutes on medium
speed. The mixture will become smooth and pale in color. Add eggs, one
at a time, making sure the first egg is fully mixed into the batter
before adding the other. After the second egg is incorporated, add
vanilla extract and mix for one minute. Scrape down the sides of the
bowl with a rubber spatula and mix for another 30 seconds to make sure
all of the ingredients are fully incorporated. Remove the bowl from the
mixer.
Alternately add small amounts of flour mixture and buttermilk to the
batter, mixing with a wooden spoon just until all dry ingredients are
incorporated. Gently fold in the flour -coated fruit, making sure the
fruit is evenly distributed through the batter. Spoon batter into the
prepared bundt pan, filling two-thirds of the pan.
Bake on the center rack of the oven for one hour and 30 minutes, or
until top is golden brown. Check the center of the coffee cake with a
bamboo skewer. It will come out clean when the cake is done. Let cool in
pan for 45 minutes.
Loosen the sides of the cake with a sharp knife. Place a serving
plate, upside down, on top of the cooled bundt pan and invert the pan to
remove the cake.
This delicious coffee cake is perfect just the way it is but I like
to jazz up the presentation with a few fresh, edible flowers and a
dusting of powdered sugar.
Copyrighted materials reprinted with permission of the publisher,
Sasquatch books. Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook, by Leslie Mackie
with Andrew Cleary, published 2003, reprinted 2006.
Click
here to read about the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook
February 2007 |
