Lemon Coffee Cake

Yield: 12-16 pieces

Need a great coffee cake for brunch or a holiday breakfast? This is it! Super simple and ready in about an hour, start to finish! Don't care for lemon… use the instructions at the end to make it any flavor you desire. Serve warm or make a day ahead… Delish!!

Ingredients:

Crumb topping:

4 tablespoons cold butter
½ cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup all purpose flour
¾ cup walnuts, chopped

Cake:

4 eggs, room temperature
Zest of one lemon (~ 2 tablespoons)
1 Box lemon cake mix
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
1 can lemon pie filling (Blueberry works great too!)
Vegetable spray or butter for pan

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
2 ½ tablespoons half & half or milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Equipment needed:

13 x 9 baking pan or casserole dish
Stand up mixer (or hand mixer)
Dry measuring cups
Pastry blender
Measuring spoons
Microplane grater
Plastic sandwich bag
Rolling pin or small mallet
Rubber spatula
Two small mixing bowls
Wire whisk

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whenever I bake I always assemble my ingredients to make the process quicker. Also, eggs should be room temperature, or at least not cold, before baking and they warm up while you gather ingredients and make the crumb topping.

Start by making your crumb topping. This way it's ready when the cake batter is mixed and the butter doesn't have time to soften. Cut butter up into ~ eight chunks. Place flour and brown sugar in a small mixing bowl and lay flour on top of dry ingredients. Using a pastry blender or two forks, cut together flour, sugar and butter until it resembles pea-sized crumbles, as shown above. Use your fingers to push butter occasionally off of pastry blender as you cut in butter. A small food processor can also be used for this step as well. Pulse processor until crumbles appear. Resist the urge to over mix as it will become a bowl of goo as the butter warms up, instead of crumbles.

I find the easiest way to chop nuts is to use a ziplock bag and a rolling pin. Using a food processor works, but the pieces become too small for my liking. Place the nuts in the baggie and seal well. Gently tap nuts with side of rolling pin or meat tenderizer until desired walnut pieces are achieved.

Pour walnuts on top of crumbled topping mixture and blend together well. I use the pastry blender for mixing too. Why dirty another tool? Set topping aside as you make cake batter. Spray baking pan with vegetable spray or butter well.

Now it's time to make cake batter. Place the four eggs in the bottom of stand up mixer bowl or a large mixing bowl if using a hand mixer. I place liquids in the bottom of a mixing bowl when baking, if possible, as this prevents batter from clumping at the bottom and reduces the time scrapping down the bowl. Blend eggs on medium speed until creamy yellow in color. While eggs are mixing, zest outer yellow layer of one lemon. You should have about 1 ½ - 2 tablespoons of zest. Only remove the outside dark yellow layer, as the white portion is rather bitter. Add half of zest to egg mixture and blend.

Add cake mix, canola oil and lemon juice to beaten eggs, as well as Greek yogurt. Blend well for about 2 minutes on medium speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to release any mix. Don't worry if there are a few small lumps in the batter, as these will disappear in baking. Spread batter evenly in bottom of greased baking pan.

To make the filling, place lemon or blueberry pie filling in small bowl. Add remaining lemon zest and stir with rubber spatula. Drop filling on top of batter on pan making about 12 mounds. Make sure to cover corners as you don't want to cheat anyone out of flavor and the luscious gooey filling. Use the rubber spatula to lightly connect the dots of filling. Cake should have a marbled look and not be thoroughly mixed… Note picture above.

Sprinkle crumb topping evenly over batter and filling. Use fingers to delicately move crumbs to edges of pan to ensure covering all of cake. As cake rises it will push through topping and filling, providing an uneven topography, as shown above. Kind of like those maps in grade school! Place in center of preheated 350 F oven and bake for 45 – 50 minutes. Top should be lightly browned and test cake for doneness by inserting toothpick in cake. When removed it should be clean. I often use the touch method, where I press on the golden browned cake and it should feel firm and bounce back when released. Due to filling, toothpicks may be moist when removed and I don't want to over bake this cake!

Make the glaze while your cake is almost finished baking or cooling. Place powdered sugar in small mixing bowl. Add half & half or milk and vanilla. Be sure to measure liquids as too much will result in a very runny glaze that won't stick to the cake. Using wire whisk, whip together until all lumps of sugar have disappeared and glaze is smooth. Glaze should be slightly runny, if too runny add a few tablespoons of powdered sugar and still well. Pour glaze over slightly cooled cake in a zigzag pattern covering corners too.

Now go impress your brunch mates!

**This recipe is so versatile as it can be made using most pie fillings and substituting the lemon cake mix with a yellow or buttered flavored mix. Use the lemon rind or omit it.. depends on what flavor you prefer!