Years ago, a dear friend and I would cook together and recipe share quite often. She had a very tasty basic coffee cake recipe that we created so many variations for based on whatever we had to hand, great for using up bits of fruit, nuts, etc. We really did make it with just about everything you could imagine but apple was always a fave. We used both grated and chopped apples most of the time for flavour and texture. It’s a lovely thing to bring to a friend’s place to have with tea or coffee. Not too sweet, despite the crumble topping!
Ingredients:
1/3 cup softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour (up to 1/3 can be whole wheat)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
3/4 cup liquid (milk, juice, tea, apple sauce, 2 mashed bananas with 1/4 cup liquid, or 1/2 cup baby food prunes with 1/4 cup liquid)
Optional:
1 tsp vanilla
1 small chopped apple and/or 1 small grated apple, or equivalent measure of grated zucchini, carrot or pumpkin, etc
1/4 cup dried fruit (raisins, craisins, chopped apricots or dates, etc) and/or 1/4 cup crushed nuts
if using banana, a touch of nutmeg is nice
Crumble Topping:
3 TBSP melted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP flour
1 tsp cinnamon
Directions:
-cream together butter and sugar
-beat in egg
-add vanilla, if using
-stir in grated apple, if using
-sift together dry ingredients and stir one third of that into the butter mixture,
-stir in 1/2 of the liquid ingredients, 1/3 of dry ingredients, final 1/2 of liquid, final 1/3 dry
-fold in any remaining optional ingredients (chopped fruit, nuts)
-combine the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon, stir into melted butter
-spread batter evenly in a buttered 8"X8" baking dish and sprinkle on the crumble topping
-bake for 35 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean (may take a bit more time if using banana, if the top starts to get too browned before the cake is cooked, cover loosely with a bit of foil)
-insert a knife around the edge of the pan and cut into squares
Best served fresh and warm but darn fine cool too. Enjoy!
