Regular readers will have noticed I enjoy baking with sour cream almost as much as sourdough. I crave sour cream’s tang so much that I make my own. It’s one of many fresh dairy products that you can make with relative ease and speed and minimal tools. Over nearly six years of writing the Twice as Tasty blog, I’ve shared many of these recipes and taught them in workshops.
Sour cream has become the dairy item I make most frequently, so I blogged about my streamlined technique at TwiceAsTasty.com last week. It and fresh yogurt, another recipe on the blog, are fabulous ways to venture into homemade dairy products and cheeses. Besides baking them into cookies, scones and coffee cake, you can use them in dips, main dishes and more. I hope to inspire you to try making your own for this month’s recipes.
The coffee cake here calls for sour cream, but you could swap in yogurt or even buttermilk. In my house, home-canned applesauce and homemade vanilla extract also go into the batter. As with homemade sour cream, they have superior flavor but can always be replaced with store-bought versions.
This streamlined recipe emphasizes applesauce and sour cream, but adding other spices with the cinnamon would give a more complex flavor. The batter is sturdy enough to mix up to 1/2 cup of chopped almonds, walnuts or pecans into the spices for the center layer and topping.
For a different presentation, turn this coffee cake into muffins. Alternate the batter and cinnamon-sugar mixture in buttered muffin cups and bake for just 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and baked through.
Sour Cream-Applesauce Coffee Cake
Serves 8-10
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup applesauce
3 tablespoons melted butter, divided
2 tablespoons rolled oats
In a large bowl, mix the sugar, cinnamon and salt. Transfer 3/4 cup of the mixture to a small bowl; set aside. To the large bowl, add the flour, baking powder and baking soda and stir.
In a small glass measuring cup, beat the egg and then stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Add this to the large bowl, followed by the applesauce and 2 tablespoons of melted butter; stir just until it forms a batter.
Spoon half of the batter into a buttered 8-inch springform or other pan. Sprinkle with half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Drop in the remaining batter in tablespoonfuls, and then spread it evenly with the back of a spoon. Add the remaining melted butter and rolled oats to the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture, and then sprinkle this over the batter.
Bake at 350°F for 50 to 55 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.