The wonderful variety of Coffee Cakes (I love the muffin size!)
Cardamom Streusel Apple Coffee Cake
This recipe is a perfect homemade coffee cake, with a special flavoring of cardamom. This spice has a complex flavor, aromatic, a bit spicy with a feeling of sweetness without being sweet itself. I had fallen in love with cardamom used in many Swedish breads and desserts that I had the pleasure of tasting when I visited a few years ago, spending a month there and loving the baked goods.
Coffee Cakes originated in North Central Europe and German and Dutch immigrants brought their recipes with them to the United States. American-style coffee cake, a single-layer, cake-like sweet with a crumb topping, became very popular with an afternoon coffee break. Coffe Cakes use a variety of spices, fillings and toppings. I love this version—cardamom sweetened with apples and topped with streusel. I made this one dairy free, using almond milk and vegan margarine.
Foodie Lit
Each of the ten stories incorporated into Jeanne Boulay’s What Keeps Us features women fighting family problems, for her place in society and the larger impersonal forces, such as the Great Depression, the Blizzard of 1888 or the Civil War. The women, no matter how the stories resolves, are strong despite their encounters and the darkness evident in each life. The central place of the Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn, from the years 1860-2020, firmly anchor the plots.
The thread tying together the stories, all connected to Green-Wood Cemetery, reveal women’s struggles and life battles that we all fight, no matter the era, status or circumstances. The connections in these beautifully written stories are across time and place.
Cardamom Streusel Apple Coffee Cake
#vegetarian #pareve/nondairy #dessert
Serves 8
Streusel
2 cups pecans or walnuts, roughly chopped
1 cup nondairy margarine, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
Cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cardamom
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk of choice
3/4 cups nondairy margarine, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large apple, cored and thinly sliced
Prepare pan
-
Fit parchment paper into a 9” spring form pan. Spray parchment paper with non-stick cooking spray. Spray sides and center.
Streusel
-
Chop nuts.
-
In a medium bowl, add melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Stir until combined.
-
Add salt and cardamom to flour. Mix and then add to butter mixture. Fold in chopped nuts. Set aside.
Cake
-
Preheat oven to 350º F.
-
In large bowl, combine flour with sugar, baking powder and kosher salt.
-
In a separate bowl, whisk eggs. Pour in milk, melted butter and vanilla extract. Whisk until combined.
-
Add egg mixture to dry mixture. Stir to combine.
-
With a rubber spatula, pour half the batter into the baking pan.
-
Add the sliced apples on top of the batter.
-
Pour the remaining of the batter over the apples, covering all of them. With a rubber spatula, smooth the batter and cover any apples sticking out.
-
Add the rest of the apples over the batter. Sprinkle streusel evenly onto the apples. Press the streusel down into the batter.
-
Bake 50 minutes. Test with a toothpick in the center and see if it comes out clean. When done, remove from oven and cool. Run a knife around the edges and carefully lift the side off. Wait until the cake is cooled to room temperature before removing from spring form bottom, to keep it from cracking.
-
Place on an attractive plate and serve.
Expandthetable suggestions
Dairy free/pareve: Use dairy free margarine in place of butter in streusel and cake. Substitute a plant or nut-based milk in the cake ingredients.
Reduce the sugar: Use Stevia or another sugar substitute in topping, cake and glaze, following package measurements for substitutions.
The idea of cardamom in the coffee cake is adapted from The Curious Plate.
