A Different Holiday Treat: Pumpkin Coffee Cake

My husband is not a pumpkin pie fan, but I am -- yet making a pumpkin pie for one person is usually not smart, because the extra slices don't freeze well. But cake slices do! So this recipe has become one of my favorites. It's also easy to share slices or more, with neighbors. I've made a couple of changes to it over the years since 1990: I use yogurt instead of sour cream, because I'm more likely to have it around. And the original last layer of topping was a streusel with butter and nuts, and I've simplified it to just brown sugar. There's already plenty of butter in the cake, and nuts can be an issue with a lot of people that I like to give treats to.

PUMPKIN COFFEE CAKE

Preheat the oven to 330 degrees, and grease a 13 by 9 inch pan.

Into a small bowl, measure out and lightly crumble with fingers:
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar

In a medium bowl, mix with a fork:
1 can pumpkin (the 15-ounce size; about 2 cups)
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

In another medium bowl, stir together:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

In large bowl, either by hand or with an electric mixer, cream togetherL
1/2 cup (1 stick) soft butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Add to large bowl, one at a time and beating well:
3 eggs

Measure out:
1 cup yogurt or sour cream

Now, add the flour mix and the yogurt or sour cream, alternately, to the big bowl, in two or three stages, beating each time. You should have a nice light buttery batter.

Spread HALF of the batter in the greased pan. Gently, spread over this the pumpkin mix. Then "dollop" the rest of the batter on top (I do it with 12 evenly spaced spoonfuls). Using your fingers, sprinkle the brown sugar over the top as a last layer.

Bake for 50-60 minutes.

Cool to room temperature before serving.

NOTE: If you don't have yogurt or sour cream, this recipe can also be done with 1 cup milk, BUT you need to change the 1 tsp baking powder plus 1 tsp baking soda, to 2 tsp baking powder instead, if you use milk.

"Batter Bread": Getting the Whole Wheat Recipe Right

I copied down a batter bread recipe (quick, simple, and no kneading!) from a Fanny Farmer cookbook back in 1990, and used it (slightly modified) often while feeding teens. Then, a couple of years into my marriage to Dave (we got together in 2002), I made a batch of this bread for him. He grew up on great bakeries in New Haven, CT, and the rather flat profile of this loaf didn't impress him. But in my regular bread pans, because the batter is pretty soft, I just couldn't get the loaf to rise to his standards (pun intended!).

The solution turned out to be not changing the recipe, but the pan. The one shown here really works nicely because it's narrower and has a better ratio of width to depth for batter breads. It hold quite a bit of batter, so instead of a 2-load recipe, this now makes one loaf plus a few mini items (muffins or small breads). The molasses gives it a lovely rich flavor.

GRAHAM BATTER BREAD

In large bowl, mix:
1/4 cup molasses or honey
1/2 Tbsp salt
2-1/2 cups very warm water

In mixing cup, stir together and let sit for 5 minutes:
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 Tbsp dry yeast (or 1 packet)

After the yeast is dissolved and a bit bubbly, add the yeast/water mix to the first mix and beat in:
3 cups whole wheat flour (I use locally grown and milled, but King Arthur also works well)

Then stir in
3 cups unbleached white flour

Cover and let rise half an hour or until doubled in size. Stir it back down and divide into greased pans. Cover loosely (a tent of waxed paper will work) and let rise until the batter is near the tops of the pans (20 minutes is usually enough).

Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes (30 minutes for "muffin pan" sizes). Tip out of pans to cool on rack.

Apple Cake: Best Version Yet!

Autumn is apple season in Vermont, and last month when Dave's sis visited, I celebrated by baking an apple cake. (She helped!) This one is made with Empire apples -- not as soft as a Mcintosh, but still soft enough to give the right "feel" after baking. I've also fine-tuned the recipe in some other ways: There is a "secret ingredient" that I've adopted after seeing it in a few recipes that King Arthur Flour provides. It's an extract called Fiori Di Sicilia (flowers of Sicily, yes?) and mingles vanilla and citrus at once. If you don't have access to it, substitute a tablespoon of freshly grated orange rind and an extra half teaspoon of vanilla -- but I really like the way this extract scents the entire cake.

Here we go:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan, preferably the kind that comes as two pieces (in a pinch you can do this in a pair of 9 by 5 inch bread pans, but it's prettier with the tube pan).

Stir together:
2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar

Peel and slice 5 large apples (Empire preferred; should amount to 5 cups) and place the slices in a large bowl; stir in the cinnamon-sugar mix and let sit while you do the rest.

Beat in large mixer bowl:
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup orange juice
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
few drops (about 1/8 tsp) Fiori Di Sicilia (see note above)

In a separate bowl stir together:
3 cups unbleached flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and beat only until well mixed.

Layer by thirds into the pan: one-third of the batter, then lay onto it one-third of the apples, and repeat twice more. If you're particular, make sure to save the prettiest apple slices for the top layer.

Bake 1-1/2 hours until golden on top. (If you used bread pans, start checking after just 1 hour.) Let cool 10 minutes and then remove the outer part of the tube pan. If it works for you, carefully lift the cake off the inner part, too. (It almost never works that way for me, so I slice the cooled cake carefully until the remainder will come off the inner part of the pan. Nothing wrong with serving this as a platter of slices!)

A note about the recipe: This version began from a Joan Nathan version that she calls "Jewish" Apple Cake, noting that the fact that the cake is made with oil, not butter, may have encouraged the name. Note that many "Jewish" apple cake recipes are designed to have layers of apple that ripple more in the finished cake. The rise in the oven will separate these slices enough, though, so that the finished cake is less regular than the layering makes it sound. I have also tried this with 1 of the cups of flour replaced with a finely ground whole wheat flour, which worked well; more than that, and Dave would realize that I was trying to turn the dessert into something overly "healthy."