Sour Cream Coffee Cake

What makes a recipe, an excellent recipe? In my opinion, an excellent recipe has three characteristics First, the recipe must be for a dish I like. Second, the recipe should not need any edits or additions. Third, it should be reliable – meaning, every time you make it, you can expect the same excellent results. It is awfully difficult to find excellent recipes. Most of the recipes I use, I tweak. Not this one… this Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe is one of the few excellent recipes I have found.

I love baking on dreary rainy days – I think it is because the smell of freshly baked goods and the heat from the oven make me feel warm inside. And since it has been raining a lot lately, I have spent a lot of hours baking. I digress, since I tried this coffee cake at a breakfast gathering at work a few months ago, I have made it at least five times. One of those times, I ate at least one third of it. The last time I made it, my husband warned me “don’t give it away. I want to eat it for breakfast this week.” So yes, it is very good. Every single person who has tried it, has loved it. In fact, I think it is close to impossible to have only one serving. What makes this coffee cake special? It is really moist without being gooey; it is sweet but not overwhelmingly so; it is crowd pleaser; it is easy to make. The “hardest” part is creaming the butter, but if you have a Kitchen Aid mixer, you can do this in one minute.

This recipe comes from Tami Windholz’s grandmother’s kitchen. She told me that you can make it ahead of time, freeze it, and use it when you receive unexpected guests. She also mentioned that you can use chocolate chips, instead of nuts. I haven’t tried the chocolate chips yet, but used fresh peaches, instead of nuts, over the summer and it was a really good combination.

Enough talk about this addictive coffee cake – take your apron out of the drawer and start baking!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar; plus 2 tablespoons for topping
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp. ground cinnamon for topping 

Directions:
1. Grease and flour a bundt cake pan and put it in the freezer. Turn on oven at 350 F.
2. Cream the butter and sugar.
3. Add the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt.
4. Prepare the topping. In a small bowl combine the chopped walnuts, sugar and cinnamon.
5. Add half of the batter to greased pan. Sprinkle topping and add the rest of the batter.
6. Bake for 50 minutes at 350 F.

Pizza Dough

You are what you eat – that’s how the saying goes. If it is true, then for the past month I have been a big, greasy and delicious pizza. I don’t recall how or when my love affair with pizza started, but it has been a constant in my life. However, I don’t like all pizzas. I prefer those with a thin and crispy crust. With a few exceptions, I am not a big fan of deep-dish pizza – it’s too doughy for my taste. I also don’t dare to try pizzas that have as toppings chicken, shrimp, beans or sardines. I am easy to please, a thin-crust pepperoni pizza and a mug of beer makes me really happy. Especially on a Friday afternoon.

For the past few years I have been on the hunt for the perfect recipe to make a good pizza crust. I tried several but I wasn’t very happy with the results: some tasted too yeasty and others were too doughy. Someone recommended I try Jamie Oliver’s pizza dough recipe. I didn’t know much about him but I liked his accent, so I decided to give it a try. Using Jamie’s recipe, I made a simple pepperoni pizza for dinner. Let me tell you my friend, the crust was perfect! It was thin and crispy and it did not have a yeasty flavor. The dough was bubbly and flavorful however, it did not overpower the taste of the fresh mozzarella and pepperoni.

This recipe was very easy to make. When I made it, I divided the dough in three parts/balls. Using one of the balls, I made one medium/large pizza. I saved the other two balls in the fridge and made more pizza two days later. The ingredients to make the dough were the staple ingredients to make pizza dough. So what made this recipe so much better than the rest? I think it is the fact that the recipe directs people to cook the pizza at 500 F. I say so because one time – using the same recipe – I cooked the pizza at 400 F and it wasn’t as good. It was a bit doughy for my taste.

If you are a pizza lover like I am – and you like your pizza thin and crusty – try this recipe. You are going to enjoy it!

Pizza Dough
Recipe Excerpted from JAMIE AT HOME by Jamie Oliver
Serves: 3 medium pizzas
Note: I added a two tablespoons of bran to the dough to make it "healthier."

3 1/2 cups (1 lb) all-purpose flour (if you can find it, use Italian "00" flour)
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 packet (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

1. Sift the flour and salt into a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring cup, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Sprinkle in the salt. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough.

2. Place the ball of dough in the bowl and turn to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room or for about an hour. The dough will have doubled in size.

3. Put the dough on a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the fridge (or freezer) until required. If using right away, simply pat out to the size of your half-sheet pan or divide in half and roll out to cover two pans. You can also divide the dough into little balls for individual pizzas - this amount of dough is enough to make about three to four medium pizzas.

4. Timing-wise, it's a good idea to roll the pizzas out about 15 to 20 minutes before you want to cook them. Turn on the oven as high as it will go – in my case 500F – and cook approximately 10 min.

Conchas - Mexican Sweet Buns

I have a really, really good recipe for you today: Conchas – which can be described as Mexican sweet buns. You may not know this, but Mexico – especially Mexico City – has a long tradition of baked goods. I remember, growing up in Mexico City, going to the Panaderia (bakery) with my grandmother and getting freshly baked goods – in the morning and in the evening. I still remember the yeasty smell of the freshly baked bollillos  (rolls) which my grandmother used to make tortas (sandwiches). The baker would take them out of the hot oven and you could still feel their warmth through the paper bag. But what I remember best, are the sweet breads baked at the bakery: churros (which I would eat with freshly made hot-cocoa), conchas (with their sweet crispy and buttery cover), orejas (made with buttery puff pastry and sprinkled with raw sugar)… I could keep going on and on but I am getting too hungry and nostalgic.  When we visit my grandparents in Mexico City, one of my husband’s favorite things to do is to walk to the local bakery (the same one I used to go when I was growing up) and buy fresh bread. I think it is because, once you eat freshly baked goods, it is awfully hard to eat bread that has been sitting out in the grocery store for days. Or, it may be that the tantalizing smell of fresh bread is sort of addictive.

Back to today’s recipe. One of my favorite Mexican sweet breads are conchas. A concha is  a buttery sweet round bread that is topped with a buttery crust which looks similar to the outside of a sea-shell.  Hence their name – concha – which means “shell” in Spanish.  For the longest time I have looked for a recipe to make conchas. Last week, my search was over. I found a recipe that seemed to have the right ingredients and that had received stellar reviews. The weekend could not arrive fast enough for me to try this recipe. On Sunday, although the roads were somewhat messy thanks to Irene, I convinced my husband to go to the grocery store and buy the ingredients I needed. And I am glad I did, because three hours later, I was eating freshly baked conchas. They were not only delicious, but they took me back to the bakery in Mexico City where I used to buy them.

Of course, I had to save some and share them with my parents and brother. As soon as my brother saw the conchas, he eagerly asked me “can I have one?” A minute later, he had devoured the piece of bread and proceeded to tell me that I should open up a bakery. My parents loved them as well, and let me tell you, they are hard to please. Even the dog liked them – my brother’s dog stole a bite from a concha but  we managed to save the rest of it.

With Fall approaching, I recommend you try this recipe (which is really easy but time-consuming) and eat it with a cup of Mexican hot cocoa. I assure you, you won’t be disappointed.

Conchas (Mexican Sweet-Topped Buns)

Adapted from a recipe by Karen from www.food.com

Total Time: 3 hrs 20 mins

Yield: 12 Conchas

Ingredients

1 tablespoon or 1 packet  active dry yeast

1/2 cup lukewarm water (not hot because it will kill the yeast)

1/2 cup lukewarm milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg

3 ½  cups all-purpose flour ( a bit more if needed)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping Dough

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Directions

1.       Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water in a bowl.  

2.       In a mixer mix sugar and butter. When soft, add milk, salt, egg and vanilla. 

3.       When the yeast becomes bubbly (approximately 5 to 10 minutes), add to the mix. 

4.       Add the flour slowly and mix until smooth.

5.       Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. If you have a mixer, you can do this using the dough hook – it takes approximately five minutes.

6.       Place in a large greased bowl, then turn greased side up. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. The dough is ready if it leaves an indentation when touched.

7.       Meanwhile, prepare the Topping Dough by mixing the sugar and butter until soft and then adding the rest of the ingredients. Once the topping is ready put it in the refrigerator until it is ready to be used.

8.       Once the dough has risen, divide it into 12 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and place on a greased cookie sheet.  

9.       Divide the Topping Dough mix into 12 equal parts. Pat each piece into a 3-inch circle. You may need to add extra flour since the “circles” will become sticky as your hands handle the dough.

10.   Place 1 circle of Topping Dough on each ball of dough, shaping it down over the ball.

11.   Make 5 or 6 cuts across the topping, using a table knife, to form a shell pattern.

12.   Let rise until doubled — about 40 minutes.

13.   Heat oven to 375 degrees F (190 Celsius).

14.   Bake buns until golden brown, about 20 minutes.