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By Request
Betty Shimabukuro
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Coffee cake bakes in the mocha flavor
Coffee cakes are designed to be eaten with the coffee on the outside -- that is, in a cup, next to the cake. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find a coffee cake with the coffee baked in.
This may have been what made a certain recipe stand out for Rita Souza. She wrote that she remembered seeing a recipe using a boxed cake mix, sour cream and Folgers crystals. Many years later, she's searching for it.
This cake is adapted from a recipe at www.cooks.com, which called for yogurt, not sour cream (close, though). It also called for biscuit mix, which I guess is close to a cake mix. (Although it seems that a boxed cake mix would give you a much lighter cake -- crossing from the realm of breakfast coffee cake into dessert cake.)
I've adapted this to eliminate the biscuit mix (because I didn't have any), but an option for using a mix does follow in a note at the end, for those who have a better-stocked pantry than mine.
It's not Souza's exact cake, but it is seriously delicious, with or without the cup of coffee on the side.
Mocha-Yogurt Coffee Cake
6 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plain, non-fat yogurt
» Filling:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped nuts
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon instant coffee crystals
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan.
Combine filling ingredients; set aside.
Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in vanilla and eggs.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with yogurt, stirring just until combined (batter will be thick).
Spoon half the batter into cake pan and smooth with spoon or butter knife. Sprinkle filling over batter. Top with remaining batter and smooth top. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until a pick inserted in center comes out clean.
Dust top with powdered sugar, if desired.
Nutritional information unavailable.
Bisquick substitute:
Use 1-1/2 cups biscuit mix in place of flour, salt and baking powder. Cut butter to 5 tablespoons.
Can you help?
A free cookbook to anyone who can solve one of these mysteries:
» First, if anyone has a recipe that exactly matches Souza's request, using a boxed mix and sour cream, send it here.
» Second, I also have a request for the coffee cake sold at the now defunct Jean's Bakery in Kailua, which is similar in color and texture to what Napoleon's Bakery used to sell as a Brunch Cake. The Jean's coffee cake had a sweet glaze and chopped peanuts or macadamia nuts on top.
Send queries along with name and phone number to: "By Request," Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana, No. 7-210, Honolulu 96813. Or send e-mail to
bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com