Overnight Coffee Cake (Grandma Goetz Coffee Cake)

It's a new year and as a new mom I'm finding it's good to have a creative outlet. I happened upon our blog again in search of the Red Lobster biscuits and ended up reading posts for about 2 hours that night! So I have decided to start posting again and to make some of the recipes already on here (I am really looking forward to making that no knead bread!). I haven't posted much up until now and it's important to know that a lot of what I make is homestyle, comfort food. In other words, not very healthy at all! As I get back into the swing of cooking for my family and broadening my horizons with the help of this blog, I hope to be able to offer up healthy and delicious recipes.

For my first recipe out of the gate this year, I chose a coffee cake recipe that I got from a family member at my bridal shower (thanks Debbie). It really is a straight forward coffee cake but what made it stand out to  me was one ingredient in particular (sour cream?!) and the fact that I can make the batter the night before and bake the next day. I'm all about less work in the morning.

(Also, I got a camera for Christmas last year and I really like taking pictures with it. I'll try to show some restraint when posting!)

Ingredients
1/2 C margarine (I used butter)
1 1/4 C sugar
2 eggs
8 oz sour cream
2 C flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
brown sugar and cinnamon for filling

Prepare the night before
1. Cream margarine/butter, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy. Then blend in the sour cream.
2. Sift together and add to creamed mixture. Add the tsp of vanilla and blend well.

The next morning
1. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
2. Spoon half of batter in the pan. Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over that layer.
3. Spread remaining batter over the sugar/cinnamon layer.

To bake
1. Place in COLD oven and set oven to 350॰.
2. Bake for 50 minutes, but check at 40 minutes.
3. When done baking, let stand in pan 15-20 minutes before taking out of pan.

My notes!
-The recipe calls for margarine. I don't have margarine; I only ever use unsalted butter in my cooking and baking. When first stirring this up I thought I made a huge mistake by not using margarine. When creaming the first ingredients together, I couldn't really get it to be "fluffy." In fact, the whole mixture just seemed odd after all the ingredients were added. 

Why so clumpy and not fluffy?

After the sour cream, it just got weird.

I really like sifting things.

As I went to bed though I got to thinking about biscuits and how having clumps of butter make them moist and airy. This calmed me for the night and in the morning, it baked up beautifully! 

-I used Pam and flour to prep the bundt pan. Now, I haven't greased and floured a pan in a long time and I chalk that up mostly to modern baking pans being largely non-stick. With my inaugural use of the bundt pan though I didn't want to take any chances. I don't think it needed it. It sort of gave the top of the cake a funny look. It didn't get in the way of overall taste but aesthetically it's a change I would make.

-The original recipe called for a filling of 1 tsp cinnamon and 2 Tbsp of granulated sugar. This didn't seem satisfying to me which is why I chose to use brown sugar instead and to just throw it on indiscriminately.

I didn't want to overdo it just in case it somehow messed up the structure of the cake. Next time, I will definitely add a lot more! I wanted more cinnamony goodness!

You can see the effect the flour/Pam combination had on the cake.

-And that's really it! Next time, if I have the patience, I will make a simple icing (powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, glob of butter) for it just for a nice finishing touch!