Streusel Is the Star, Inside and Out: Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake

After making François Payard's Gâteau Basque, I still had more sour cherries on hand and I decided to make Tish Boyle's Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake from Flavorful. Boyle says this cake is good with sweet cherries, but better with tart ones. The recipe is written to produce a 9-inch square cake and I multiplied it by 1.5 and baked it in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan.

You make the streusel by mixing flour, dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, salt, and melted butter in the food processor until the mixture forms coarse crumbs; and stirring in sliced almonds. The cake is simple. You beat softened butter with sugar until fluffy; add eggs; and alternately add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) and sour cream. This cake has streusel not only on top of the cake, but also in the middle. You spread two-thirds of the batter into a pan, sprinkle on some streusel and cherries, and then spoon over the remaining cake batter followed by the rest of the streusel.
The top layer of streusel covered my cake completely and it baked into a wonderful crunchy texture. This coffee cake was fantastic. The sour cream cake was perfectly moist and very flavorful, and the streusel and cherries put it over the top. Having a layer of streusel both inside and on top of the cake gave each bite the perfect ratio of lovely cake to buttery, sweet, cinnamon-y streusel. The cherries were a nice addition, but they played second fiddle to the streusel. This scrumptious cake was everything a coffee cake should be and I would happily make it again.

Recipe: "Cherry Streusel Coffee Cake" from Flavorful by Tish Boyle.

Comments

Louise said…
Do you think this coffee cake could support a few more cherries? Like maybe a third more?