My Mother in Law's Delightfully Simple Sour Cream Coffee Cake

So a few months ago I was asked to bake a little something for meeting we were having at work. Since the meeting was going to be at nine in the morning, I knew coffee cake would be the perfect choice.

At first I considered making my mother-in-law's tried and true Coffee Cake recipe but being me, I decided I would try something new and quickly set to work searching for something different. I went to every recipe website I could think of, read a few cookbooks, and eventually settled on a recipe that had over a hundred rave reviews. It was humble but looked to be a sure fire hit.

After the cake was in the oven, for fun, I took a peek at my mother-in-law's recipe to see how it would compare to the one I had settled upon. It compared alright! It was the same exact recipe! Go figure!


Although both recipes called for all purpose flour, I tempted the gods and used cake flour instead. I wanted the cake to have a delicate, light mouth-feel and changing the flour did the trick. The texture was exactly the way I wanted it.

Marilyn's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups + 4 tablespoons cake flour (If you prefer a denser, more pound cake like texture use 2 cups all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Nut Topping:
1/2 cup chopped nuts such as pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (If you can find Vietnamese Cinnamon, I highly recommend it.)
1/4 cup melted butter tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour (or use Pam with Flour - this stuff has completely changed my life! I *love* it!) a bundt or angel food cake pan.

Cream butter and sugar until pale yellow and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until mixed. Sift dry ingredients together. Mix half the dry mixture into the wet on medium speed and half of the sour cream. Scrape down bowl and repeat.

In a small bowl, combine all the nut topping ingredients together and mix until crumbly.

Add half the cake batter into the pan . Cover with half of the nut topping. Spoon the other half of the remaining cake batter into the pan and top with remaining nut topping. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until knife comes out clean. Let it rest in the pan until cool. Remove from pan and serve as is or with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

Yield: About 10-12 servings. Would I Make This Again? Definitely. It's simple, easy to prepare, and tastes really good. I have yet to find someone who doesn't like it. Plus, it gives me the warm-fuzzies knowing I made one of my mom-in-laws favorite recipes. 4.5 stars out of 5