Cinnamon Coffee Cake

3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tb cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
1 ts salt
1 ts baking soda
1 ts vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (see below if you don’t have buttermilk)

Get out a large bowl and a small bowl. In the large bowl, mix flour, sugars and cinnamon. Cut in the butter using your hands or two knives, until the butter pieces are roughly pea-sized. Use a cup measure and set aside 3/4 cup for crumble topping. After that’s done, add the salt and baking soda and mix with your hands.

In the small bowl, combine the wet ingredients, breaking up the egg yolks. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, take a 1 cup measure and put a Tb of white vinegar in it. Fill the cup up with milk, stir and let it sit for 5 minutes. This makes a great buttermilk substitute and in fact I stopped buying buttermilk. Using a separate bowl for the wet ingredients isn’t necessary but it makes it easier to mix the batter without overdoing it.

Pour the wet ingredients into the large bowl and using a spatula, mix just until everything’s moist. Place into greased/sprayed pans and sprinkle with crumble topping. Bake at 400 degrees until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs (try not to over-bake as the edges will get hard and the cake will dry out) . Remove and let sit in pan until cool, or serve hot.

What I like to do is fill muffin cups 2/3 full, sprinkle with crumble topping and bake for about 22-25 minutes. There will be batter left over, so I take a loaf pan (a mini loaf pan would be perfect) and spray it with cooking spray. I take a paper-sized sheet of foil, fold it in thirds until it’s the same width as the bottom of the loaf pan, then put it into the pan with the ends sticking up on either end. This makes it a lot easier to get it out of the pan when it’s done baking. Then I fill the pan with the remaining batter, sprinkle with the remaining topping and bake until it’s just done in the center. When it’s cool, I slice it and while it’s still sitting on the foil in loaf form, I wrap it in another sheet of foil, put it in a freezer bag, and place it in the freezer. This way I have fresh hot muffins, and also something in the freezer to serve to surprise guests down the road.

You can also divide the batter into two regular size loaf pans. Sometimes I like to put a few dollops of my mom’s homemade apple butter on top of the batter before it goes in the oven, swirl it and then put the crumble topping on. This gives it a new dimension.

This is a long-time favorite of ours and especially great for Fall. I hope you enjoy it!