Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake (Recipe inspired by THE HIGH TIDE CLUB)

Oh, my goodness. So much good food mentioned in The High Tide Club. Much like The Hideaway, this story draws on its Southern roots to tantalize your taste buds.

Imagine sipping cocktails at sunset while overlooking the bay on summer evening; platters of crispy fried chicken and buttery biscuits heaped in front of you for lunch; a chocolate cake tucked into a wicker basket for a midnight picnic on the beach.

SIGN. ME. UP. For all of it. And I don’t even like cocktails very much.

Even though all different food was thrown at my senses while reading this book, one treat in particular kept popping up in my head—although it didn’t appear once in the novel.

COFFEE CAKE.

Part of this is because the first part of The High Tide Club is dominated by a rich, old lady named Josephine telling stories about the days of her youth. Perhaps it’s my parochial school upbringing, but whenever I think about little old ladies, I think about after-church socials in the community hall. Those little old ladies, my grandmother included, were FIERCE when it came to their coffee cake game, and they always brought their best efforts on Sundays. I may not have enjoyed going to church much, but I always enjoyed the folding table of sweets that awaited me once I made it through the mass.

The other part that kept whispering coffee cake…COFFEE CAKE… into my ear as I was reading is the fact that Josephine’s stories are just dripping with drama, scandal, and secrets. Although Josephine is a little too curmudgeonly to really feel affectionate toward, there’s no doubt she weaves a good yarn.

As you read the salacious bits of gossip about tumultuous loves and glittering parties, it feels a little like you’re grabbing coffee and exchanges secrets with your girlfriends, à la those scenes at the seaside café in the HBO TV show Big Little Lies. You can just see your heads bent close together, whispering the latest scandals to each other over a sweet, sticky treat.

This Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake pairs perfectly with hot beverages and long chats. The almond vanilla cake is thick and moist thanks to the yogurt that’s mixed into the batter, and there’s a ribbon of cinnamon, brown sugar, and almonds running through the cake, as well as sprinkled over the top. YUM.

You can serve the coffee cake plain, but I like to drizzle a simple glaze over the crunchy streusel topping to really oomph up the sticky-sweet factor. This also helps it taste more like a cinnamon bun, which is never a bad thing.

This can be a no-fuss cake that’s served straight from the pan, but if you’re aiming to impress in the manner of the church social ladies, line the baking pan with a strip of parchment paper so you can easily lift the cake out and make a pretty presentation out of the finished product. (See photo below; it ain’t pretty, but it’s helpful.)

Also, it’s probably a bit quicker to use your Kitchen Aid stand mixer to make the batter, but I used my handmixer and still had the pan into the oven in about 30 minutes.

Fair warning: I say this serves 8-10, but four adults and one child polished this entire cake off within a few hours of it being photographed. So, while it can serve 8-10 (and, from a diabetes-minded standpoint, it probably should) you might want to figure on people serving themselves large slices of this cake — or, asking for 2nd and 3rd portions after their first smaller slices.

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Servings 8 people

Ingredients

  

Streusel Ingredients

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup sliced almonds
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

Cake Ingredients

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

Glaze Ingredients

• 3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp milk

Instructions

 

PREP INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat your oven to 350F.
• Spray an 8”inch square baking pan with baking spray, then place a strip of parchment paper in the base of the pan and fold over the edges of the pan to make “handles” (see photo above). Set pan aside.
• Measure out the ½ cup yogurt and set aside.

BAKING INSTRUCTIONS

• Make the streusel first: Melt 2 tbsp butter in a small dish in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Stir until butter is completely melted, then set aside.
• In a separate small bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, almonds, and 2 tbsp flour. Mix together with clean hands, then stir in the melted butter with a spatula. Mix until all ingredients are evenly moistened. Set aside.
• Now make the cake: Cream together the softened 1/ 4 cup butter and the sugar in a large bowl using either a Kitchen Aid stand mixer or a handmixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition until mixture is light yellow and fluffy. Set aside.
• In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour and the baking powder.
• Alternately add the flour mixture and the yogurt to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition. Scrap down the sides of the bowl as needed, which may be often, to ensure all ingredients are thoroughly combined.
• Add the vanilla and almond extracts, then beat again to incorporate.
• Take your prepared baking pan and spoon a little more than half the cake batter onto the parchment. Smooth the batter over the bottom of the pan, then sprinkle about ½ of the streusel mixture over the cake batter. Then add the remaining cake batter, smoothing it over the streusel layer, and finally sprinkle the remaining streusel over the top of the cake batter.
• Place the pan in the oven and bake at 350F for 35-40 minutes, or untill a toothpick through the center comes out clean. Once finished, cool on a wire track for about 30 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the pan not covered in parchment paper, then carefully lift the cake out of the pan using the parchment paper “handles” and place it on a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

GLAZE INSTRUCTIONS

• Whisk together the confectioner's sugar and milk, then drizzle the glaze onto the completely cooled cake. Let the glaze harden by sticking the cake in the fridge for 15-20 minutes, but remember to serve the cake at room temperature.

Notes

This recipe is an adapted version of the “Miss Saigon Cinnamon Almond Coffee Cake” from All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray (Chronicle Books, 2009).