American Coffee Cake (no sour cream)

Coffee cake is without a doubt one of my favorite desserts out there, especially in the USA. And it's really just a spongy cake with brown sugar and cinnamon! 

I tried a recipe this summer but it had sour cream, which they say is the secret ingredient, but it made the whole cake so greasy, it was disgusting! I mean crumbly yes, but come on, who wants to run off so much fat??? not me. I actually threw away the whole thing to the trash, although it did taste good but it wasn't worth the calories. 

So I need to try it again. So I gave Gemma Sttaford's recipe another try again but substituting the recipe with yoghurt (and she DOES suggest this in her video, let's be fair). Well, it was pretty good. Also very impressive cake, HUGE! (she does say this too!). 

So here is what I hope to be my to-go coffee cake recipe. This recipe comes kind of in 3 parts, labourious but not hard.

INGREDIENTS for the struddle:

-1 cup of brown sugar (170 grams).

-1+3/4 cups of flour.

-3/4 cup of cold butter (170 grams).

-1+1/2 cups of pecans or walnuts (optional).

-2 and 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

-1/2 tsp of salt.

For the cake:

-1/2 cup of butter room temperature (113gr).

-2 eggs.

-2 cups of flour

-1 cup of sugar.

-1+1/4 tsp baking powder.

-1/2 tsp baking soda.

-1/2 tsp salt.

-1 cup of yoghur (2 small spanish yoghurts)

For the icing:
-2 tablespoons of milk.
-2 drops of vanilla essence. 

-1/2 cup of powdered sugar.

STEPS:

STEPS for the struddle:

1. Cut the cold butter into little cubes and add to a bowl with the rest of the ingredients (except for the nuts). 

2. With your hands mix it all together until it all becomes this brown mix. The butter will be a little dissolved but still will have chunks. 

3. Now add the nuts that you have chopped up before to make them smaller.

STEPS for the cake:

1. Beat soft butter and sugar together.

2. Adds eggs and beat.

3. Add flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

4. Now add yoghurt.

5. Now add half of your dough to the tray (with baking paper underneath, of course), and then add half of your struddlel. Now add the rest of the dough on top and then the rest of the struddle.

5. Now place on tray (it is better if you place it on a square tray rather than round pot.

6. Now bake for around 50 minutes to an hour to 180 degrees.

7. At the end if you want you can make some icing but it is NOT neccesary, the icing is made by simply fixing the ingredients of the list. 

Very good cake, this cake is great with a cup of tea. Next time I need to remember to make it in a square flatter tray not this tall round pot.