I baked this cake for our short vacation to Chail last weekend. But I couldn’t get enough time last week to post this recipe. The day before we left, I decided to bake this simple yet delicious recipe from The Cake Bible. It was Friday, and I had left message for leaving early at work because I had to do multiple stuff at home before I leave for the trip. Alternating between packing up my luggage and baking the cake in my little kitchen, I somehow managed to take some shots and backed them up in my laptop for sharing here later.

I chose to bake this warm and earthly cinnamon flavored cake to be enjoyed over a hot cup of coffee, while we all enjoy the cool and rainy weather of hills. When we reached up to our destination, I realized that the box was more than half empty. I was delighted that all my friends enjoyed it a lot. Even I am one of those who enjoy their travel more if their bags are full of different kinds of munchies. Eating while traveling is so much fun. That’s one part of the journey I like the most.

While I started baking, I realized that I had no walnuts left at home. And having no time to go to market, I replaced walnuts with whole almonds. The flavor, color {because of almond skin} and the texture they resulted was quite satisfactory. You can experiment with any other kind of nuts too, if you wish. Also, I skipped adding apples to the cake, as I was worried, if that would reduce the shelf life of the cake.

Ingredients

Streusel

1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 cup whole almonds
1 ½ tsp cinnamon powder
½ cup unsifted cake flour
4 tbsp softened unsalted butter
½ tsp vanilla

Batter

4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sour cream
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 cup granulated sugar
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
150 gm soft unslated butter

Instructions

1. Prepare a 9 inch springform pan by greasing it, lining the bottom with a circle of parchment paper cut to fit, and then greasing and flouring over that.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.

For struesel:

1. In a food processor with the fitted blade, pulse the sugars, nuts and cinnamon until the nuts are coarsely chopped.
2. Keep aside ¾ cup of the mixture to be used as filling.
3. To the remaining, add the cake flour, butter and vanilla and pulse briefly to form a coarse, crumbly mixture for the topping.

For batter:

1. In a medium bowl, lightly combine the yolks, vanilla and ¼ of the sour cream. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl (or your mixer) combine the dry ingredients  and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to combine.
3. Add the butter and remaining sour cream. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients have been moistened and then increase to medium speed (high speed if using a hand mixer) and beat for 1 ½ minutes to aerate and develop the cake’s structure.
4. Scrape down the sides as needed. Gradually add the egg mixture in 3 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition and scraping the sides each time.
5. Remove from the mixer and use a spatula to fold the batter a few times, making sure that the very bottom and the sides all incorporate evenly.
6. Reserve about 1/3 of the batter and scrape the rest into the prepared pan. Smooth the surface with a spatula—this is a thick cake batter and will require smoothing.
7. Sprinkle with the prepared streusel filling.
8. Dollop the rest of the batter into blobs and smooth it out with a spatula. Sprinkle the streusel topping over the top of the cake.
9. Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cover loosely with buttered foil after 45 minutes to prevent over browning.