Re-thinking Coffee Cake: Anyone for Dessert?

A few weeks ago I wrote about eating warm and comfie breakfast foods as dessert. There were chocolate-oatmeal cupcakes with browned-butter butter cream frosting, bacon fat and maple syrup; tiny vanilla donuts with fromage blanc sorbet and Oregon rhubarb compote; and, most creatively, an orange-oatmeal crème brulee served in emptied eggshells.

But last weekend I came upon one of these trendy desserts that I could actually attempt to make at home.  It’s a simple-looking little streusel coffee cake. But Chef William Bradley’s take on eating 7 AM food at 7 PM is ridiculously delicious.

Bradley, who’s chef at the opulent Addison restaurant in the Grand Del Mar hotel, manages to make a  coffee cake that is richer, denser, butterier than any I’ve ever tasted. To make matters even better, he serves it with light, voluminous coffee ice cream (he says he makes it in a special machine that incorporates more air) and a sexy Amaretto syrup standing in for the staid maple variety.

“I look for desserts that make you feel warm and happy, desserts that people are familiar with,” he says. “This coffee cake isn’t necessarily innovative but it tastes really good.”  The “innovation,” it turns out, comes with the finishing touches – the homemade ice cream and a gastrique of Amaretto that’s reduced with a bit of sugar and anise until thick and shiny.

Bradley’s homey dessert is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the rest of the Addison menu which offers elegant turbot from France and lamb cloaked in minced parsley and served with a savory cherry tart. The menu is prix fixe – either $80 or $120. Not exactly neighborhood coffee shop prices; yet the amazing coffee cake fits in perfectly with the upscale fare.

Here’s Chef William’s recipe. It’s deceptively simple. I’m guessing that when he says “sugar” Bradley is using a good, slightly coarse organic sugar and when he says butter, we’re talking Plugra.

ADDISON COFFEE CAKE

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon plus 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup melted butter
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a medium bowl.
In another medium bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat by hand until they are a pale hue. Then add the melted butter, milk and vanilla extract to the beaten eggs and sugar.
Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and whisk together until thoroughly mixed.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake in the center of the oven for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Before cooling on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes, drizzle the streusel topping atop the cake so that it melts into the cake.

Streusel Topping
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup butter (room temperature)
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Mix all ingredients together until the mixture is the consistency of dry
sand.

Comments

[RecipeGirl]

Love the idea of coffee cake for dessert... why not??

[Maureen]

Coming from the creator of the fabulous Cream Cheese Swirl Brownies and ooey-gooey Milky Way Brownies, I consider this high praise indeed. I hope Matters of Taste readers will check out RecipeGirl.com, too.