Strawberries make me restless.
It’s a fact. Yes, a strange fact, but no less true.
See, in my part of the world, strawberries come along every year right around May. This is around the time when I’ve loooooong ago let slide any New Year’s resolutions I might have made for myself, when it’s possible that I’ve slacked a bit on my workout routine, and the goal of reading a chapter of a book a night before I fall asleep has somehow transferred into watching an old episode of House every night before I pass out.
Don’t even get me started on the mania that I try to pass off as my closet. It’s not pretty.
So…. strawberries come along at a time of year when I’ve cemented in some slightly lazy and ooooooh so comfortable habits for myself.
I don’t know how or why this works, but strawberries inspire me to shake my world up a bit, maybe introduce something new, maybe hop on one leg every morning just for the hell of it…. whatever. This is the time of year when I change things up a bit.
This year, strawberries have inspired me to do two things: learn Italian and combine fresh strawberries with one of my favorite cakes of all time…. streusel topped coffee cake.
Let’s do this.
Now seems like a good time to admit that you could put streusel topping on just about anything and I’d devour it with few regrets. Please don’t let that take away from how crazy awesome this strawberry coffee cake is. Moist sour cream coffee cake is mixed with cooked down fresh strawberries and topped with streusel topping. It’s both lovely ad humble, and just the perfect little cake to sit with in front of my computer as I work my way through Italian flash cards.
Strawberry Coffee Cake
inspired by Panache at Rose Hill
1 heaping cup sliced strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons water
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 ounces sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a few drops of almond extract (optional)
Topping:
3 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
To make the topping:
Combine all the topping ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until crumbly. Set aside.
To make the strawberry mixture:
Combine strawberries, 1/3 cup sugar, water and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring constantly until the sauce is thickened and strawberries are soft and somewhat broken down. Set aside to cool.
Grease and flour a 10×10-inch baking dish, knocking out excess flour, and set aside.
To make the coffee cake:
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla extract, and almond extract if you’re using it.
Sift dry ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter in 3 parts alternating with the sour cream in 2 parts, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat just until combined.
Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan. Spread the cooled strawberry mixture over the batter. Spoon the remaining batter onto the strawberries and spread evenly. Top with streusel topping and bake in the upper third of the oven. Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Angie
Just made this. Added some blueberries as well. It’s delicious, and made good use of the almost expired sour cream and about to go bad strawberries hanging out in my fridge. Thanks!
emiko
what do you think of making this with cranberries instead of strawberries? about how much sugar would you add when cooking the cranberries? thanks!!
Ama
I made these as muffins/cupcakes to bring in to a weekly work baking event — they came out *fantastic*! I’m saving this link. :D
Susan
Made this recipe this weekend!! Delicious. So light and delicious! Thank you!
Marina
My mouth is watering just reading this recipe! I like the idea of using them as cupcakes too and nice to know it works like a charm. I would really love to see the images but they never seem to open up on my computer… if any techies can shed some light I’d be eternally grateful:-)
Elizabeth
The coffee cake is so amazing, so light and airy yet hearty and yumtastic however, I have been getting many a complaint that 1 cup is simply not enough strawberries for the cake! I think my tasters are just wanting more of the yummy sweet stuff :) Anyways, I might add more strawberries next time but the coffee cake is never changing, totally a keeper!
Kelly
I just made this, but since I didn’t have a 10×10 pan (thought it might overflow my 9×9 pan), I thought I’d try making these as muffins. Turned out perfect! I made 11, but they would have made 12 if I had evened out the batter just a bit better. I have some rhubarb in my garden at the moment, so I used 1 stalk of rhubarb and then topped up with strawberries to make roughly 1 1/2 cups of fruit. I added about 2 tbsp more sugar with the fruit to help out with the tartness of the rhubarb. They baked in my convection oven for about 30 minutes, so they would need a few minutes longer in a normal oven. Since I make fruit crumbles often, I usually make loads of crumble topping so that I have extra to freeze. So I didn’t actually make the topping found in this recipe, but it worked beautifully and I got to skip that step. I definitely recommend making extra of things like that. Always a help!
These turned out to be absolutely georgeous! I took some over to my husbands office and they went crazy over them. They will definitely be on my list to make over and over again.
Amanda
I just made this. Phenomenal. However, next time I’m going to double, maybe even triple the strawberry sauce. Soooo good!
Avril Miller
Hey Joy! Just wanted to let you know that I can’t get enough of this coffee cake!!! I adore this recipe to pieces!!! Merci Beacoup…..=)
Georgia
Hi Joy,
I made this coffee cake today, and it’s SO moist and delicious! Here’s my post about it:
https://comfortofcooking.blogspot.com/2010/04/strawberry-coffee-cake.html
(It looks ALMOST as good as yours ;)
Thanks so much for this recipe. Looking forward to meeting you at Surfas next weekend!
Georgia
Mariam
Can you please tell me if you use Salted or Unsalted Butter in your recipes?
joythebaker
i always use unsalted butter mariam.
Tamar
This was absolutely delicious! My boyfriend and I ate about 3/4 of it in one night! I do agree with other comments saying to increase the strawberry filling. I halved the cake batter part (we’re only 2 people here) without changing the amount of strawberry filling, and next time I will still double even that amount.