Gingerbread Coffee Cake with Cranberry Pecan Streusel
Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking, heavily adapted from Joy of Baking
Yields: 9-12 servings
This moist, gorgeous Gingerbread Coffee Cake is the perfect combination of sweet, spiced, crunchy, and comforting. The best part (besides the taste!) is that it can be made in advance and refreshed in the oven for just a few minutes before serving. You can even divide the preparation over a few days to ensure it fits into your holiday schedule. This was Mike’s favorite dish on our holiday breakfast table.
Coffee Cake Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses*
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream
*Tip from Joy of Baking: To prevent the molasses from sticking to the measuring cup, first spray the cup with a non-stick vegetable spray.
Cranberry Pecan Streusel Ingredients:
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
6 tablespoons cold butter
1 cup chopped pecans (Oh Nuts! sent me Cranberry Pecans and they were so awesome for this!)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup apple cider
Directions:
NOTE: If you wanted to make this cake way in advance, you could complete this recipe up to the point of wrapping and refrigerating the cake. Instead, you’d double wrap it and freeze it. Then you could just thaw it overnight in the fridge before warming it through in the oven and serving it.
2 days in advance: Place the cranberries and apple cider for the streusel into a small bowl and cover. Refrigerate to rehydrate the berries.
1 day in advance: Make the streusel. First, drain the cranberries. Combine the flour and brown sugar in a medium bowl and using two knives or a pastry cutter, cut in the cold butter until you have crumbly streusel. Mix in the pecans and drained cranberries. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and make a foil sling for a 9-inch square baking pan: tear off 4, 16-inch long pieces of aluminum foil and fold them in half. Situate two side-by-side in the pan, covering the bottom of the pan to the edge (they will overlap). Situate the other two strips in the same manner, but perpendicular to the first. The overhanging foil of the sling will make it easy to remove the cake from the pan after baking and cooling. Butter and flour the sling.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. Set aside. In a separate large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy (at least 2-3 minutes). Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the molasses, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl when you need to. Gently mix the sour cream and milk in a measuring cup. Add the dry ingredients and milk mixture alternately, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat until just combined.
Pour the batter into the buttered and floured baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for about 25 minutes before sprinkling the streusel evenly over the top of the cake (and kind of pressing it on). Continue baking for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool completely. Remove it from its pan using the foil sling and wrap it tightly with plastic wrap (I wrap the foil sling and all so I can just pop it back in the pan to refresh later on) and stick it in the fridge.
The morning of: Let the cake sit out and come to room temperature while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Pop it back in its pan and into the oven for a few minutes until warmed through. Let it cool for about 10 minutes.
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