Pecan Streusel Coffee Cake

This was a simple and quite good cake - from the book "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas - a wonderful little book just filled with all sorts of sweet and savory cakes that are super easy to make.  I am not too sure about posting the recipe, but I wanted to share it  - so here it is.....

Ingredients - 

Streusel Topping

4 Tbls Cold unsalted butter, cut into buts

1/3 C AP Flour

1/2 C Firmly packed Brown Sugar

1 Teas Ground Cinnamon (I was out so used a combo of ground clove, and nutmeg)

1 C Pecan Pieces

Cake

4 Tbls unsalted butter room temp

1/2 C Firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 C White Sugar

2 Large eggs, room temp

1 Teas Vanilla Extract

2C AP Flour

1Teas Baking Soda

1 teas Baking Powder

1/4 Teas Salt

1 C Buttermilk or plain yogurt (I only had one of the 6 oz plain yogurt cups so made up the difference with sour cream, it worked fine)

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 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a 9 inch spring form pan and line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper

 - To make the streusel topping: In a food processor, combine the butter, flour, brown sugar and spice.  Process the butter in until mixture forms coarse crumbs.  Stir in the nuts and set aside.

 - In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (it stayed pretty grainy I thought, but whatever)  Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla, beat until smooth.  In another  bowl sift the flour, soda, powder and slat together.  Add to creamed mixture alternately  with buttermilk or yogurt in 2 increments.  Beat until smooth.  Spread evenly in the prepared pan and then sprinkle evenly with the topping.

 - Bake for 30 to 35 mins, or until the cake is golden brown and tests out clean.  Let cool in pan for about 10 mins, then remove the sides and let cool completely. Cut cake into wedges to serve.  Makes on 9 inch cake; serves about 10

Pineapple Upside Down Cake - 1st Place Winner

I found this on line at the PA Farm Show site - 

The cake was a first place winner - 2011 - by Sally Reinoehl - brava!!!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees - Generously grease a 13 x 9 pan

Syrup - 

1 C Butter

1 C Brown Sugar (I used Dark)

2 Tlbs Light Corn Syrup

Place all these ingredients in a small saucepan.  Heat till sugar is melted.

Cake-

3 Eggs (room temp)

2 C Sugar

1 C Vegetable oil

1 C Sour Cream

2 tsp Vanilla

2 1/2 Flour

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Baking Powder

In a large bowl beat eggs and sugar until thick and lemon coloured.  Beat in oil, sour cream and vanilla.  In another Bowl sift together dry ingredients.  Add the sifted mix to the egg mixture; mix well.

Pour syrup into the prepared pan.  Place 12 slices of pineapple over syrup (I used two cans that had 8 slices, 12 would have been better - I also placed cherries in the the holes of the pineapple) Pour batter over the pineapple slices.  Bake for about 50 minutes - until done.  Testing with a toothpick.  I found that the cake browned quickly and the last 12 or so minutes I turned the temp down a bit, but that was probably my oven.  Remove from oven and let rest for about 5 minutes.  Flip onto plate and let cool completely.  I let it sit for a little longer than 5 mins and the topping stuck a little - so 5 mins max for sitting before turning onto a plate!! If you didn't add the cherries before baking Sally recommends decorating the cake at this point.

This came together very fast and was very tasty.